Fiction | Chapter 16

Be a Mule

Revered novelist Tim O’Brien talks with Chapter 16 about his forthcoming Nashville appearance with the other Tim O’Brien, a bluegrass legend

By Ed Tarkington | January 12, 2015

January 12, 2015 For more than thirty years, Tim O’Brien has been regarded as one of the definitive voices of the Vietnam War. A literary trailblazer, he melds fact and fiction in texts that are both starkly realistic and surreal. O’Brien will be in Nashville on January 17, 2015, to share the stage with Tim O’Brien, the equally legendary Nashville musician, at a special benefit in support of The Porch Writers’ Collective.

Addressing the Anxieties of Art-Making

Novelist Leah Stewart talks with Chapter 16 about her literary roots in Tennessee

By Susannah Felts | January 7, 2015

January 7, 2015 Leah Stewart, the author of four critically acclaimed novels, is a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville who has held teaching positions at both her alma mater and the University of the South in Sewanee. Stewart will return to Tennessee to give a reading in Vanderbilt’s Buttrick Hall, Room 101, on January 15, 2015, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The Consolations of Nature

In Christopher Scotton’s debut novel, a young man finds strength in the Kentucky mountains

By Sean Kinch | January 6, 2015

January 6, 2015 Christopher Scotton’s debut novel, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, is both contemporary and old-fashioned, addressing present-day issues in a novelistic form that harks back to the nineteenth century. Scotton will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 13, 2015, at 6:30 p.m.

Troubled Revolutionary

Marcus Baram’s Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man explores the life of the late artist and activist

By Maria Browning | December 11, 2014

December 11, 2014 Gil Scott-Heron’s rise to prominence and inexorable fall into addiction seem to echo an old and oft-repeated story in the music world, but Marcus Baram’s Gil Scott-Heron: Pieces of a Man delves deeply into the artist’s life and psyche, offering insight into why this particular man went down that sad road.

Dispatches from the Default Period

In Richard Ford’s new volume of novellas, Let Me Be Frank With You, Frank Bascombe returns to reflect on life’s final act

By Ed Tarkington | December 2, 2014

December 2, 2014 Despite a body of work that traverses a broad landscape of American character and experience, Richard Ford will always be recognized first as the creator of Frank Bascombe, American Everyman. Bascombe returns in Let Me Be Frank With You, a series of spare, ruminative tales of quiet longing in New Jersey in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Richard Ford will appear on December 10, 2014, at 6:15 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.

Killer Aim

Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta is back in Patricia Cornwell’s newest novel, Flesh and Blood

By Sarah Norris | November 25, 2014

November 25, 2014 Flesh and Blood is Patricia Cornwell’s twenty-second novel featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta. Since the series began, with the 1990 publication of Postmortem, Cornwell’s books have sold more than 100 million copies in 120 countries, and fans will be glad to know that Flesh and Blood includes the same core cast of characters they have come to know and love.

Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir

Darius Stewart
Belt Publishing
276 pages
$19.99

“Through a mix of straightforward memoir, brilliantly surreal reveries, and moments of startling imagery and insight, Stewart’s explorations of love, illness, chemical dependency, desire, family, joy, shame, loneliness, and beauty coalesce into a wrenching, musical whole.”

~the publisher