Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Loving the World More Fully

Margaret Renkl wants us to pay attention and stay hopeful

Leaf, Cloud, Crow, a companion to Margaret Renkl’s 2023 book The Comfort of Crows, is a weekly journal organized by season, encouraging readers to look closely at the plants and creatures that surround them, “to understand them more intimately, and to love them more fully.” Margaret Renkl will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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Letters to a Younger Sister

Doan Phuong Nguyen’s A Two-Placed Heart conveys her family’s story in verse

When Doan Phuong Nguyen was in elementary school, her family immigrated to Nashville from Vietnam. This complicated transition inspired Nguyen’s new book, A Two-Placed Heart, a lightly embellished autobiographical, epistolary story told in verse. Nguyen will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 24 and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.

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Protecting What We Love

This Is How a Robin Drinks makes the case for urban nature

In This Is How a Robin Drinks, Joanna Brichetto makes the case that urban landscapes can be perfect places to fall in love with the wonders of nature. Brichetto will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 23 and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.

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Quietly Determined

A young woman finds her way in Margot Livesey’s The Road from Belhaven

Margot Livesey’s The Road from Belhaven follows a gifted girl’s passage from child to adult. Livesey will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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Variations on the Immigrant Life

Ruben Reyes Jr.’s debut story collection captures the endless diversity of Latin American migration

In his debut story collection, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, Ruben Reyes Jr. uses a broad array of literary styles and emotional registers to capture the breadth of the immigrant experience. He will discuss the book at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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A Man of the Book

Novelist Jamie Quatro plumbs the desires of body and soul in Two-Step Devil

Set on and around Lookout Mountain, Jamie Quatro’s Two-Step Devil is a sharp-edged, tangy novel, layered with the region’s mysteries. Quatro will appear at The Granfalloon in Chattanooga on September 10, The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Knoxville on September 20, and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.

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