Chapter 16
A Community of Tennessee Writers, Readers & Passersby

The Royal Slave

Percival Everett’s James builds a new story from an old one

Prolific, critically acclaimed writer Percival Everett offers a new take on a controversial classic with his latest novel, James. Everett will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 25.

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Giving Hope a Trellis

In Edgar Kunz’s Fixer, plain language makes way for depth of meaning

Images of ordinary life convey warmth, grief, and complicated emotion in Edgar Kunz’s second poetry collection, Fixer. Edgar Kunz will appear at Vanderbilt University in Nashville on March 21.

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Waiting

The fellowship of the specialist’s office

This space differs from the typical waiting room because not one of my fellow patients, struggling to make themselves comfortable in these chairs, is here for a regular checkup. We are all here because another doctor has seen something disturbing, something that has to be investigated.

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John Kasper, Ezra Pound’s Biggest Fan

Book Excerpt: Dynamite Nashville: Unmasking the FBI, the KKK, and the Bombers Beyond Their Control

In Dynamite Nashville, Betsy Phillips delves into a series of unsolved bombings in the city between 1957 and 1960 and uncovers links to racist violence that spread across the South in the years that followed. Dynamite Nashville will be published by Third Man Books in July 2024.

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Uncertainty and Possibility

Jessica Young’s Two Homes, One Heart takes on kids’ experience of divorce

Jessica Young’s latest picture book, Two Homes, One Heart, explores through a child’s eyes the uncertainty and possibility experienced when a family separates. Young will appear at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 30.

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A Revolving Door of Death

Steven Hale lays bare the humanity of those condemned on Tennessee’s death row

Between 2018 and 2020, Tennessee state officials killed seven men by electrocution or lethal injection, more than any other state in the country except Texas. In Death Row Welcomes You, journalist Steven Hale tells the stories of the condemned and the people who have come to know and love them. He also exposes the arbitrary nature of the death penalty and the hypocrisy of Tennessee governors. Hale will discuss his book at Parnassus Books in Nashville on March 22 and Union Ave. Books in Knoxville on April 11.

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