Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

A Steely Commitment to Change

Historian David Greenberg explores John Lewis’ lifetime of making good trouble

John Lewis’ career in public affairs spanned over 60 years, and he came to embody past, present, and future. In John Lewis: A Life, historian David Greenberg explores how the civil rights icon’s moral compass guided him from decade to decade. David Greenberg will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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In Collapse There Is Light

Three new collections illuminate times of transformation

In their latest collections, poets Erin Hoover, L.S. McKee, and Shuly Xóchitl Cawood locate moments of insight, challenge, and transformative power in even the darkest aspects of contemporary life. Erin Hoover will appear at ArtsBuild in Chattanooga on October 12.

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Wine, Dine, and Murder

Marlitt Kaplan returns in Lauren Nossett’s The Professor

In The Professor, Lauren Nossett’s sophomore novel, former detective Marlitt Kaplan returns to university politics when her mother asks for her help in a Title IX investigation of a German professor. Lauren Nossett will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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The Flood of History

In The Mighty Red, Louise Erdrich’s North Dakota characters survive natural and man-made disasters

In Louise Erdrich’s The Mighty Red, a broad cast of characters living in North Dakota struggle to survive the 2008 economic downturn. Erdrich will appear at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville on October 18.

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Muscadine Vines

Monic Ductan gathers stories of tangled small-town legacies in Daughters of Muscadine

Cookeville writer Monic Ductan’s debut story collection, Daughters of Muscadine, reveals the entangled historical and psychological legacies at work in several generations of Black families in Muscadine, a fictional rural town in northeast Georgia. Monic Ductan will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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Small Victories

In Jayne Anne Phillips’ prize-winning novel, West Virginia women find refuge after the Civil War

In Jayne Anne Phillips’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Night Watch, a group of women from the hills of West Virginia survive the horrors of the Civil War and find safety in a humane mental hospital. Phillips will discuss Night Watch at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.

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