Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Suffering in Coal Country

Chris Hamby recounts miners’ fight for health benefits in Soul Full of Coal Dust

Soul Full of Coal Dust by Nashville native Chris Hamby exposes the coal industry’s machinations to keep miners with black lung disease from getting modest compensation. Hamby, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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Home, Happiness, and Hurt

Writers of color consider what it means to belong in the South

A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South considers the varying societal access points for people of color below the Mason-Dixon line. From a broad range of perspectives, the book takes on an essential question: What does it mean to “get into” the modern South, rather than remaining an eternal tourist? Editor Cinelle Barnes, along with contributors Jennifer Hope Choi and Minda Honey, will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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The Past Is Never Dead

A new memoir by Lawrence Wells pulls back the curtain on a Southern literary community

Lawrence Wells and his wife, the late Dean Faulkner Wells, had a rare view into the literary community of Oxford, Mississippi, during their nearly 40 years together. Wells recounts it all in his engaging memoir, In Faulkner’s Shadow. He’ll discuss the book at an online event hosted by Novel in Memphis on September 28.

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A Glorious and Invisible Map

In M.O. Walsh’s endearing new novel, a strange machine disrupts life in a small Southern town

The Big Door Prize, a new novel from M.O. Walsh, poses a big what if: What if a vending machine could read your DNA and provide your “potential life station?” The answers shake up residents of a small Southern town in ways that are by turns comical and profound. Walsh will discuss the novel at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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Traitor to Whom?

Amanda McCrina’s YA novel explores shifting allegiances in a time of conflict

Franklin writer Amanda McCrina’s new YA novel, Traitor, follows Toyla, a young soldier whose family heritage embodies both sides of a wartime conflict in the city of Lwów.   

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The Singing Wire Between Joy and Grief

You Want More spans the career of one of the South’s most beloved storytellers

With You Want More: Selected Stories, Hub City Press delivers a career retrospective of the writer The New York Times called “among the great pillars of Southern literature.” George Singleton will discuss the book with Ashleigh Bryant Phillips at a virtual event hosted by Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on September 28 and will appear at the 2020 Southern Festival of Books, held online October 1-11.

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