November 20, 2013 With chapter headings like “If Your Friends and Family Start Acting Like Dramatic Weirdos” and “How to Eat All the Stuff You Aren’t Supposed To,” there’s no mistaking Tracy Moore’s Oops! How to Rock the Mother of All Surprises for a garden-variety pregnancy guide. Instead it’s an irreverent, hilarious look at modern breeding from the perspective of a work-hard-party-harder writer who had no plans to get pregnant—and then did.
November 13, 2013 Nikki Giovanni is a poet who speaks directly about the business of living, whether she’s celebrating simple pleasures, observing the difficulties of love, or denouncing injustice. On November 20, 2013, at 6:15 p.m., she will discuss her new collection, Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid, at the Nashville Public Library. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
November 7, 2013 Dead Meander, a collection of personal essays by Nashville author and translator Adria Bernardi, captures traumatic experiences frozen in time. Bernardi acts as the fact-checker of her own life and emotions, as researcher and reporter charged with accounting for each experiment’s contributing factors, however minor their effect.
November 4, 2013 Two years after the publication of Catherine the Great, Robert K. Massie still finds his subject’s political example instructive, and he often notes parallels between Catherine’s public reputation and the treatment of today’s female leaders. Prior to his Nashville visit to accept the 2013 Nashville Public Library Literary Award, Massie spoke with Chapter 16 about his career and inspiration. He will give a lecture on November 9, 2013, at 10 a.m. at the University School of Nashville. Massie will also appear—with novelist Suzanne Kingsbury—at the Nashville Public Library on November 10 at 2 p.m. as part of the Nashville Writers Circle series. Both events are free and open to the public.
October 31, 2013 For Red Holler: Contemporary Appalachian Literature, John Branscum and Wayne Thomas have compiled a group of stories, essays, poems, and graphic narratives from the work of twenty-three Appalachian authors. As the book’s subtitle suggests, the selections are truly contemporary, and many stretch the boundaries of traditional literary forms. They also stretch the old Appalachian stereotypes of primitive violence, poverty, and ignorance.
October 30, 2013 Ann Patchett energetically resists all efforts to identify autobiographical elements in her fiction, but she has never been averse to personal writing in general: in fact, as she explains in her new book, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, she got her start as a writer by publishing essays and features for national magazines. Prior to her reading on November 4, 2013, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville , Patchett spoke with Chapter 16 about how opening a bookstore gave her the courage to publish this book. The event, part of the Salon@615 series, is free and open to the public.
