A Publication of Humanities Tennessee

The Stories We Tell

March 12, 2012 Manuel Muñoz’s first novel, What You See in the Dark, weaves together the stories of two murders. In the fictional world of the novel, one story is “real,” and one is based on the filming of Psycho’s infamous shower scene. Through these twinned killings, Muñoz explores the way stories are embedded in lived experience, from the movies we consume to the stories we tell ourselves about our lives to the narratives we (mostly unwittingly) construct to make sense of strangers and intimates alike. With the turn of every page, he lays bare the constructed nature of reality—the multiplicity of constructions of any one event. Muñoz will give a reading at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 15 at 7 p.m. Click here for details.

The Constancy of Goodness

March 8, 2012 Robert Goolrick’s forthcoming second novel, Heading Out to Wonderful, begins with the arrival of a mysterious stranger, Charlie Beale, in a quiet Virginia town during the summer of 1948. Beale brings with him two suitcases—the first filled with knives and the second with money—and a powerful desire that “things would finally turn out better, and that this would be the place he could feel at home.” The book isn’t due in stores until June, but Goolrick will read from it on March 15 at 6 p.m. as part of Algonquin Book Club Night at Parnassus Books in Nashville.

The Constancy of Goodness

Deciding Who Gets to Be God

March 7, 2012 In his novel When the Killing’s Done, T.C. Boyle sets conservationists against animal-rights activists in a battle royal over the ecosystem of the Channel Islands off the coast of California. It’s a fight both philosophical and physical, and it leaves no one unscathed. Boyle will discuss and sign When the Killing’s Done on March 16 at the Nashville Public Library as part of the Salon@615 series. A free public reception begins at 6:15 p.m. and will be followed by a reading at 7. Click here for details.

Feeling a Sacred Trust

March 1, 2012 Silas House, the former writer-in-residence at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, has long been an activist on behalf of Appalachian environmental causes. Today he talks with novelist Barbara Kingsolver about a benefit appearance she’s making in Knoxville next week to support the Scenic Vistas Protection Act, a bill proposed by the Lindquist Environmental Appalachian Fellowship (LEAF), that would protect ridges above 2,000 feet from being removed by surface coal mining. Barbara Kingsolver and Kathy Mattea present “A View from the Mountaintop” at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville on March 11. Click here for event details and here for more information, including videos, about mountain-top removal mining.

Celebrating William Gay

February 29, 2012 William Gay’s death last week of heart failure sent tremors through the community of writers and readers in Tennessee and beyond, people who loved him as a friend and as a writer. We have asked some of those who knew Gay, in ways large and small, to send us their stories. They come from New York City and from Wyoming, from Maine and from Virginia, and, of course, they come from Tennessee. Together, we hope their recollections present a portrait of a man who will be greatly missed.

Saying Something Deeper

February 29, 2012 Every conversation I ever had with William Gay was intense, in the same way that the stories in his brilliant collection I Hate to See that Evening Sun Go Down are intense. He once called me in California to discuss marriage, and the conversation lasted three hours.

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