Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Wonders and Weirdness and Hope

Magical adventures await a heroine who refuses to be defined by her disability

Natalie Lloyd’s signature style shines throughout Hummingbird, a delightful yet poignant mashup of reality and fantasy, highlighting the heartbreak of the body’s physical limitations versus a soaring spirit and boundless imagination. Natalie Lloyd will discuss Hummingbird at Parnassus Books in Nashville on August 3.

Read more

Hanging with the Dead

Intrigue abounds in a town where ghosts are less threatening than the living

With The Promise of Lost Things, Nashville writer Helene Dunbar adds another page-turning chapter to the story of St. Hilaire, New York, and its spooky residents – both living and dead – begun in her 2020 novel, Prelude for Lost Souls. Dunbar will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on July 27.

Read more

Nothing Contrived

Stories from the Attic is the final collection by William Gay

When William Gay died suddenly in 2012, he left behind a considerable amount of unpublished work that has been slowly making its way into print. The final posthumous release, due in July, is Stories from the Attic, a collection of short stories, essays, and fragments from works-in-progress.

Read more

When the Looking Changes

Critic and author Teju Cole thinks about photography and politics

FROM THE CHAPTER 16 ARCHIVE: Teju Cole is the photography critic at The New York Times Magazine and the author of Blind Spot, a collection of photographs accompanied by brief pieces of writing. 

Read more

Making Believe

God’s Rascal examines the life of fundamentalist J. Frank Norris

“If fundamentalism had not existed,” Barry Hankins tells us, J. Frank Norris “would have invented it.” In God’s Rascal, Hankins offers a portrait of a talented, abusive man whose fiery rhetoric shaped a major U.S. religious movement.

Read more
TAKE THE SHORT READER SURVEY! CHAPTER 16 SURVEYOR SURVEYING