Q & A
In Search of the Moments
Greil Marcus turns his eye toward the music of Van Morrison
by Paul McCoy
July 26, 2010 Greil Marcus isn't simply a music critic. He is, as Nick Hornby calls him, "peerless, not only as a rock writer but as a cultural historian." In Marcus's writing, music is often the point of departure. Where the vehicle goes from there is anyone's guess, but you can bet it will be an interesting, often thrilling ride. Marcus's latest book, When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison, considers the indefinable moments in an enigmatic performer's work where the artist transcends ordinary communication and reaches for the sublime.
Published Monday, 26 July 2010
Landscapes of Her Heart
Elizabeth Spencer, one of the South's greatest writers, discusses her work, her years in Tennessee, and her friendship with Eudora Welty
by Maria Browning
July 13, 2010 After more than sixty years of acclaim as both a novelist and short-story writer, Mississippi native Elizabeth Spencer is still pursuing her craft. In anticipation of her reading at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, she spoke with Chapter 16 about her remarkable body of work. Spencer will read at the Bairnwick Women’s Center on the Sewanee campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Published Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Waking the World To Affrilachia
Poet Frank X Walker raises race awareness in the mountains
by Serenity Gerbman
July 10, 2010 Frank X Walker grew up in Danville, Kentucky, a part of Appalachia. This mountainous region is still considered an area inhabited only by poor, white people. As an African-American, Walker knows better, and he coined the term Affrilachian to describe himself and others like him. "I believe it is my responsibility to say as loudly and often as possible that people and artists of color are part of the past and present of the multi-state Appalachian region extending from northern Mississippi to southern New York," Walker says. He will read from and discuss his work as part of the Tennessee Young Writers' Workshop on July 13 at 7 p.m. in the Gentry Auditorium at Austin Peay State University, and he answered a few questions from Chapter 16 in advance of his appearance.
Published Friday, 9 July 2010
Mr. On the Way Up
Chapter 16 talks with Adam Ross about the most talked-about debut novel of the year
by Margaret Renkl
June 22, 2010 By the time Knopf announced last winter—in an open letter to booksellers by legendary editor Gary Fisketjon, no less—that it would launch Nashville novelist Adam Ross's debut book, Mr. Peanut, with a print run of 60,000 copies, and that it would be published in fourteen countries, chatter in the book world had already begun. The book officially hits shelves today, and the chatter has grown to a roar, with Michiko Kakutani calling it "dark, dazzling" and Ross himself "an audacious new writer." Ross took time to discuss his novel with Chapter 16 before the launch event at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville tonight at 7 p.m. He will also appear at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Memphis on June 24 at 6 p.m.
Published Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Outspoken
Gay-rights activist Abby Dees gives straight people permission to ask the embarrassing questions
by Margaret Renkl
June 18, 2010 There are no statistics on this, but given that some six-to-twelve million Americans are gay, lesbian, or bisexual, it seems fair to assume that every straight person in this country knows someone who isn't. But as civil-rights activist Abby Dees has observed, it's not always easy for even the most open-hearted straight people to ask their gay friends and family members about the kinds of issues they really wonder about. And without open dialog, Dees believes, it's too easy for misunderstandings to fester, for stereotypes to persist. That's why she wrote Queer Questions Straight Talk: 108 Frank, Provocative Questions It's OK to Ask Your Lesbian, Gay or Bi Loved One. The book is both witty and earnest, a conversation-starter designed not to answer questions but to invite others to ask them. Dees will sign copies of Queer Questions Straight Talk on June 19 at Nashville Pride and on June 20 at 3 p.m. at OutLoud!
Published Friday, 18 June 2010
Chatting with the Enemy
American adventurer Mark Stephen Meadows gets to know the rebel terrorists of Sri Lanka
by Maria Browning
June 10, 2010 Seeking an understanding of terrorism that goes beyond media fear mongering, Mark Stephen Meadows journeyed to Sri Lanka to interview the Tamil rebels who began using terror tactics more than two decades ago in their war against the government. In Tea Time with Terrorists, he reports on a troubled country, its gentle people, and the human face of terrorism. He answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to his event at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on June 15 at 7 p.m.
Published Thursday, 10 June 2010
Commodore Central
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer T.J. Stiles talks with Chapter 16 about the life and legacy of Cornelius Vanderbilt
by Clay Risen
June 8, 2010 Around Nashville, Cornelius Vanderbilt is best known for the university that bears his name. Most folks are aware that Vanderbilt, like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, was one of the nineteenth century's great industrial barons, and one of the first to command the nation's vast rail networks. But where did he come from? And why would a Northern industrialist give a small treasure to fund a university in post-Civil War Tennessee? Biographer T.J. Stiles, winner of both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, talks with Chapter 16 about the Commodore.
Published Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Cowboy Thriller
Craig Johnson talks with Chapter 16 about his Walt Longmire series, tensions in the American West, and what it's like to be a French cowboy
by Serenity Gerbman
June 7, 2010 The bio on the book jacket of Craig Johnson's latest novel, Junkyard Dogs, is refreshingly brief, noting only that he is the author of the Walt Longmire mystery series and that he "lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-five." But it's worth mentioning that the modest Johnson has become a literary star in a seemingly unlikely place: among the famously intellectual readers of France. His first novel, The Cold Dish, was released in France in 2009 as Little Bird and won the Prix du Roman Noir as the best mystery novel translated into French for 2010. Before his Nashville appearance on June 7, Johnson answered questions from Chapter 16 about the ways that his literary alter ego has surprised him over the course of six books, the responsibility he feels as a Western writer to get the region right, and the group of French schoolboys who peppered him with questions at the Louvre, and whom he gallantly named "Les Cowboys."
Published Monday, 7 June 2010
The Boy's Alright
Former Senator Fred Thompson talks with Chapter 16 about his new memoir, Teaching the Pig to Dance
by Liz Garrigan
June 8, 2010 Born in 1942 to a wise-cracking car salesman and a woman who appreciated politically incorrect humor, Fred Dalton Thompson grew up in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, where his Grandma Thompson padded around town showing off her excised goiter (which she carried around in a hankerchief), where he heard old men swap lies at the Blue Ribbon Café, and where he wandered into his share of boyhood scrapes. Thompson went on to spend eight years (1994-2003) in the U.S. Senate, conduct a failed presidential bid, and star in a long list of movies and television shows, but his new memoir, Teaching the Pig to Dance, sticks to his Lawrenceburg youth. Thompson spoke with Chapter 16 prior to his Nashville appearance at Davis-Kidd Booksellers on June 8 at 7 p.m.
Published Thursday, 3 June 2010
Eccentric Faith
Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director John Patrick Shanley talks with Chapter 16 about Doubt, faith, and theater
by Paul V. Griffith
June 2, 2010 John Patrick Shanley's 2005 play, Doubt: A Parable, won the Triple Crown for drama: a Tony Award, an Obie, and a Pulitzer Prize. The 2008 film version, which Shanley directed, stars Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman and was nominated for Critic's Choice Award, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Shanley is a product of parochial schools, a fact that figures heavily in the design of Doubt, the story of a mistrustful, conservative nun who suspects a progressive parish priest of having an inappropriate relationship with an altar boy. Shanley will be in Nashville as part of Lipscomb University's thirtieth annual Christian Scholars' Conference. He speaks at 4 p.m. on June 3 in the Collins Alumni Auditorium.
Published Wednesday, 2 June 2010
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