Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Taking Up Space on the Page

Renée Watson makes room for Black women in a divine exploration of family, friendship, and romance

Renée Watson’s debut adult novel, skin & bones, is an adoring love letter to fat Black women. Watson will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27. 

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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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Duality Is Fine

John Vercher’s latest novel reckons with Black identity in the past and present

In John Vercher’s third novel, Devil Is Fine, a biracial father grieves his deceased son and dying career, realizing that he only understands both through a post-mortem examination. Vercher will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on 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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