Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

Little Things

Lisa Howorth’s Flying Shoes blends dark humor and grief in a character-driven story about the consequences of murder

June 16, 2014 In Lisa Howorth’s debut novel, Flying Shoes, Mary Byrd Thornton’s eccentric small-town world is disrupted by a call that unearths memories her family would rather forget. Howorth will discuss Flying Shoes at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 19, 2014, at 6:30 p.m., and at Burke’s Book Store in Memphis on July 10, 2014.

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Southern Culture Ad Absurdum

Between Wrecks, George Singleton’s new collection, pushes Southern stereotypes into comic territory

June 12, 2014 George Singleton’s new story collection, Between Wrecks, features outcast characters who perpetuate the myth of Southern freakishness while also giving that lore new preoccupations: these uproarious stories are entrenched in the South while preserving an ironic distance from it. Singleton will appear at Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on June 15, 2014, at 2 p.m.

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Misogyny and Murder

Nashville mystery writer Steven Womack teams up with a screenwriter in his new thriller, Resurrection Bay

June 11, 2014 Based on the story of notorious Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen, who murdered as many as twenty-one women near Anchorage between 1971 and 1983, the bad guy of Resurrection Bay, jointly written by Steven Womack and Wayne McDaniel, is Decatur Kaiser, baker by day and butcher by night. Edgar Award-winning novelist Steven Womack will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 17, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

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Craft, Then Faith, Then Letting Go

With The Painter, acclaimed adventure writer and novelist Peter Heller delivers a soulful page-turner

June 5, 2014 Jim Stegner, the protagonist of Peter Heller’s new novel, The Painter, is an archetypal American individualist in the tradition of Ernest Hemingway and Jackson Pollock. Finding himself in the midst of a deadly conflict that puts him at odds with both the police and a pair of vengeful outlaws, Stegner still somehow manages to create art that evokes in his audience “everything they know and feel and love, and all the things they don’t know, and some of the things they hope.” Peter Heller will discuss The Painter at Parnassus Books in Nashville on June 12, 2014, at 6:30 p.m.

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Memphis Mojo

Memphis Mojo

Memphis Mojo

Gerald Duff
Lamar University Press
234 pages
$17.95

“There is no time to relax in this story; events morph into conflicts, then crises on several fronts and seemingly isolated pathways in the novel begin to converge unexpectedly in a swelling suspense. Then comes the surprise ending..”

–Harold Raley, author, Louisiana Rogue

Beauty So Rare

Beauty So Rare

Beauty So Rare

Tamera Alexander
Bethany House Publishers
480 pages
$14.99

“Alexander’s exquisitely written historical tale is filled with unforgettable characters, a romance that seems hopeless, and a close-up look at the aftermath of a war that nearly destroyed our country.”

–Booklist

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