November 2, 2012 Hadley Hury recently retired as college counselor and chair of the department of English at Hutchison School in Memphis; for ten years he also was film critic at the Memphis Flyer. Hury’s 2003 novel, The Edge of the Gulf, received strong national reviews; he followed it with a collection of stories, It’s Not the Heat, in 2007. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in numerous magazines, reviews, and journals including Image, The James Dickey Review, Green Mountains Review, Colorado Review, and Appalachian Heritage, among others. He and his wife live in Rugby, Tennessee.
Read morePoetry
Singing What You Mean
Poet Robert Wrigley talks with Chapter 16 about the necessity of stories and music
October 24, 2012 Robert Wrigley, the author of five collections, writes poems that speak to daily concerns about family, aging, and the land we inhabit. Wrigley recently answered questions via email about his life in Idaho and his goals for poetry. As he explains, “poetry exists for three central reasons: to delight, to instruct, and to wound.” Robert Wrigley will give a free public reading on October 25 at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall room 101 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Click here for event details.
Read more
Imagination and Wit, with a Side of Conscience
A brief look at Margaret Atwood’s remarkable body of work
October 23, 2012 Since her first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969, Margaret Atwood has always seemed a writer very much of her time and yet prescient, with an almost uncanny ability to show us clearly who we are and where we might be headed. One of a tiny handful of authors who enjoy both critical respect and wide popular appeal, Atwood has used her prominence to advocate for the environmental causes that are her passionate concern. As the Nashville Public Library Foundation prepares to honor Atwood with the 2012 Nashville Public Library Literary Award, Chapter 16 surveys her body of work. Atwood will give a free public reading on October 27 at 10 a.m. in the auditorium of the Nashville Public Library downtown.
Read moreNew Honors for Graves
Jesse Grave Wins Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year
September 26, 2012 Johnson City poet Jesse Graves continues to rack up honors for his first poetry collection, Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine. Last week, Graves won the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year Award. Graves will receive the award at the Southern Appalachian Culture Festival at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.
Read more
“New Frontier, 1970”
September 26, 2012 Kory Wells often performs her poetry with her daughter Kelsey, an old-time musician, in an act that’s been called “hillbilly cool” and “moving, fun, spiritual, and sassy.” Decent Pan of Cornbread, the first album by the Murfreesboro duo, is out this fall. Kory is author of the poetry chapbook Heaven Was the Moon (March Street Press). Her novel-in-progress was a William Faulkner competition finalist, and her “standout” nonfiction has been praised by Ladies’ Home Journal. Her work appears in Christian Science Monitor, Ruminate, Rock & Sling, Deep South Magazine, Now & Then, New Southerner, Literary Mama, and other publications. Kory and Kelsey Wells will appear at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville on September 27 at 7 p.m., and at the twenty-fourth annual Southern Festival of Books, held October 12-14 at Legislative Plaza in Nashville. Both events are free and open to the public.
Read moreThe Child Inside
In a new essay for the Potomac Review, Bill Brown describes one thing he’s learned from poetry
August 21, 2012 In an essay for the Potomac Review called “One Thing I’ve Learned,” Nashville poet Bill Brown explains the spiritual value of keeping an open heart, of remaining tuned to wonder:
Read more