Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

American Tragedy

Daniel J. Sharfstein captures two larger-than-life opponents of the Nez Perce war in Thunder in the Mountains

Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War, a new work of narrative history by Daniel J. Sharfstein, vividly portrays a bloody conflict and its leaders, in the process offering new insight into the enduring power of dissent. Sharfstein will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on April 6 at 6:30 p.m.

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Giving Birth to Ourselves

Memphis’s Susan Cushman has curated a collection of essays by women, for women

In A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be, Memphis writer Susan Cushman has compiled an anthology dedicated to female empowerment. Cushman and four Memphis contributors will read from and sign copies of the book at the Memphis Botanic Garden on March 26 at 3 p.m.

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Begin Again

Erik Anderson’s hybrid essays illuminate the cyclic movements in our environments and our minds

In Erik Anderson’s new essay collection, Flutter Point, the author’s curiosity and willingness to lean into hybrid forms leads to an investigation of swerves, collapses, and new beginnings. Anderson will read from the book at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville on March 23 at 8 p.m.

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A Rebellious Life

Jeanne Theoharis tells the story of the real Rosa Parks

You learned the story of Rosa Parks, the quiet seamstress from Montgomery, but you missed the truth. In The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis depicts Parks as a militant rebel throughout her life. Theoharis will speak on March 23 at 6 p.m. at the River Room in the University Center at the University of Memphis.

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Mon Dieu!

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison is a nonfiction thriller of Parisian intrigue

Holly Tucker’s City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris, a gripping tale of murder and royal intrigue set in seventeenth-century Paris, reads like the best historical fiction as it presents well-documented—and nefarious—facts. Tucker will discuss the book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 21 at 6:30 p.m.

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A Vast Cacophony of Contradictions

Photographer Jack Spencer seeks the soul of a country

Nashville-based photographer Jack Spencer describes America as “a vast cacophony of contradictions,” but his stunning collection, This Land: An American Portrait, transcends the dissonance. Spencer will sign and discuss This Land at the David Lusk Gallery in Nashville on March 18 from 4 to 7 p.m.

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