Margaret Renkl wants us to pay attention and stay hopeful
Leaf, Cloud, Crow, a companion to Margaret Renkl’s 2023 book The Comfort of Crows, is a weekly journal organized by season, encouraging readers to look closely at the plants and creatures that surround them, “to understand them more intimately, and to love them more fully.” Margaret Renkl will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
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Doan Phuong Nguyen’s A Two-Placed Heart conveys her family’s story in verse
When Doan Phuong Nguyen was in elementary school, her family immigrated to Nashville from Vietnam. This complicated transition inspired Nguyen’s new book, A Two-Placed Heart, a lightly embellished autobiographical, epistolary story told in verse. Nguyen will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on September 24 and the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville on October 26-27.
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Joseph Hayden explains the long history of disinformation in American politics and journalism
From hoaxes to demagogues to unthinking media prejudices, disinformation has long infected American politics and media. Joseph Hayden traces that history.
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An Arkansas journalist reveals hard truths about the food industry
Alice Driver’s Life and Death of the American Worker tells the stories of the men and women who labor for a food industry giant. Driver will appear at the 2024 Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, October 26-27.
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Darius Stewart’s lyrical memoir voices the complexities of being Black, gay, and Southern
Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir, the second book by Knoxville native Darius Stewart, takes readers on a journey of self-discovery as it unearths the complexities of his childhood and investigates life after addiction and health challenges, including an HIV diagnosis.
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Poet William Woolfitt considers his West Virginia heritage in The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go
William Woolfitt’s new poetry collection, The Night the Rain Had Nowhere to Go, pays homage to generations of his people in mine-riddled West Virginia. Woolfitt will appear with Linda Parsons, Earl S. Braggs, Rita Quillen, Susan O’Dell Underwood, and others at “A Gathering of Madville Poets” at Addison’s Bookstore in Knoxville on September 7.
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