Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Connection to the Earth

Brooks Lamb works to preserve the family farm

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Family farming is hard work, acknowledges Brooks Lamb in Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place. In this 2023 Chapter 16 interview, he says it’s also a rewarding lifestyle worth saving, for the sake of the environment and ourselves. Lamb will discuss Love for the Land at Patagonia Nashville on May 16.

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A River’s Tale

Patti Callahan Henry tells a story of two sisters and the power of fairy tales

Operation Pied Piper, initiated by the British government in September 1939, relocated thousands of children in an effort to protect them from war bombing. In Patti Callahan Henry’s novel The Secret Book of Flora Lea, young sisters Hazel and Flora find themselves displaced with so many others, thrust into a terrifying adventure. Henry will appear at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville on April 2.

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A Living Pulse

Past and present mingle in collections by Loving, Shockley, and Underwood

In their recently published collections, poets Denton Loving, Evie Shockley, and Susan O’Dell Underwood each find an original expression for the mingling of past and present that presses at the edges of contemporary life. Susan O’Dell Underwood and Denton Loving will appear at the 2024 Tennessee Mountain Writers Conference in Oak Ridge, April 4-6

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Giving Hope a Trellis

In Edgar Kunz’s Fixer, plain language makes way for depth of meaning

Images of ordinary life convey warmth, grief, and complicated emotion in Edgar Kunz’s second poetry collection, Fixer. Edgar Kunz will appear at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 21.

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Fools in Love

Lovesick Blossoms highlights queer romance in the South

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Julia Watts’ latest novel, Lovesick Blossoms, nestles the reader in the 1953 university culture of Kentucky and the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals trying to juggle public and private personas. Watts will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

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Looking for Home

Kelsey Norris’ debut story collection resonates with unanswered questions

Kelsey Norris’ debut story collection, House Gone Quiet, chronicles characters at a turning point. Norris will appear at the 2023 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 21-22.

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