Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

When They Decide It’s Spring

Poet Anna Laura Reeve entwines motherhood with the natural world in her luminous debut collection

In her debut collection, Reaching the Shore of the Sea of Fertility, poet Anna Laura Reeve depicts motherhood with startling honesty and insight, enmeshed with experiences of the natural world and the enduring drive to make art. Reeve will discuss the book at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 16.

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Being There

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly on juggling motherhood and career

In It. Goes. So. Fast., NPR correspondent Mary Louise Kelly describes the challenges of being both a mother and a journalist, determined to do right by both roles. Kelly will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 20.

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The Boy Beneath the Hero

Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish, writes a heartbreaking (and aptly titled) memoir

Daniel Wallace, best known for magical Southern novels like Big Fish, tackles a difficult truth in his new memoir, This Isn’t Going to End Well. Wallace’s brother-in-law, William Nealy, a popular cartoonist and outdoor writer, committed suicide in 2001, and in seeking to understand that tragedy, Wallace has crafted a sublime mediation on family, art, and friendship. Wallace will appear at the ETSU Spring Literary Festival in Johnson City on April 12-13 and the SouthWord Literary Festival in Chattanooga on April 14-15.

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The Goodness of the Game

Ryan McGee’s memoir takes us behind the scenes of Minor League Baseball

In Welcome to the Circus of Baseball, sportswriter Ryan McGee recalls his summer as an intern for the minor league Asheville Tourists.

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The Imagined Country

In Charles Frazier’s The Trackers, a painter searches for a rich rancher’s runaway wife

Set in the later years of the Depression, Charles Frazier’s The Trackers tells the story of a painter, commissioned to create a mural for a Wyoming post office, who is hired by a wealthy rancher to locate his runaway wife. Charles Frazier will discuss The Trackers with Tony Earley at a ticketed event at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 11.

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Crime, Culture, and Complicity

Beverly Lowry’s Deer Creek Drive weaves true crime with memoir

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Focused on the brutal killing of a Mississippi socialite, Beverly Lowry’s Deer Creek Drive revisits an event that grabbed national headlines, left lingering questions, and is still met with silence in the Delta town of Leland. Lowry will appear at SouthWord Literary Festival in Chattanooga on April 14-15.

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