Nonfiction | Chapter 16

Black Women Who Changed the World

Keisha Blain talks with Chapter 16 about a lost slice of American history

By Aram Goudsouzian | October 15, 2018

The historical figures at the center of Set the World on Fire by Keisha Blain are outside the halls of power: they are black, they are women, they are poor or working-class, and they advocate ideas that fall outside the political mainstream. Blain will deliver the Belle McWilliams Lecture in American History at the University of Memphis on October 18 at the River Room in the University Center.

Black in Appalachia

Karida Brown explores the way ideas of home have shaped an oft-overlooked population

By Peter Kuryla | October 10, 2018

In Gone Home: Race and Roots through Appalachia, Karida L. Brown recovers the remarkable story of how black Appalachians defined themselves and their home in the coal-mining towns of Kentucky during the broad middle of the twentieth century. Brown will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

In North Korea with the “Chosin Few”

Hampton Sides’s fast-action nonfiction book resurrects heroes of the Korean War

By Peggy Burch | October 3, 2018

Memphis native Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail and In the Kingdom of Ice, will talk about On Desperate Ground, his account of the U.S. Marines at Chosin Reservoir, when he appears at Novel in Memphis on October 8 at 6 p.m.

Paying Attention

Lee Smith talks with Chapter 16 about writers and writing, memories and remembering

By Susannah Felts | September 28, 2018

In this generous and thoughtful interview, Lee Smith reflects further on her writing life, the way her stories have been shaped by certain books, and the significance of place in her work, among other subjects. Smith will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

The Never-Ending Risk-Benefit Analysis

Kim Brooks heads to Tennessee to discuss parenthood in the age of fear

By Susannah Felts | September 27, 2018

In March of 2011, Kim Brooks made a decision that upended her life: she left her four-year-old son buckled into his car seat while she ran into Target to make one quick purchase. The result of the fallout from that decision is Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear, which Brooks will discuss at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14.

The Stories of Emmett Till

Historian Elliott Gorn sifts through the myths of a tragic American murder

By Aram Goudsouzian | September 26, 2018

In Let the People See, Elliott Gorn combines a gripping narrative of American tragedy with a clear-eyed, sensitive reading of the way the Emmett Till story has acquired different meanings over time. Gorn will appear at the 2018 Southern Festival of Books, held in Nashville October 12-14. Festival events are free and open to the public.

Tender Headed (National Poetry Series)

By Olatunde Osinaike
Akashic Books
80 pages
17.95

“In Tender Headed, Olatunde Osinaike asks the question, what makes a man, and what makes a man like me? As he interrogates the inner and outer workings of masculinity in all its sharp and tender parts, and the way a Black man meets the world, his poems strut and duck and weave across their pages. These poems unpack the ingredients of being and make a meal of language.”

~ Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses