Q & A
Hero Complex
Jaden Terrell talks with Chapter 16 about her debut thriller, Racing the Devil, her protagonist—a sweetheart of a disgraced ex-cop—and her plans for a ten-book series
by Lyda Phillips
February 3, 2012 As a member of two writers’ groups—the venerable Quill and Dagger, and Sisters in Crime—and as an organizer of the Killer Nashville conference, Jaden Terrell is a major player in the crime-novelist scene in Nashville. Her debut novel, Racing the Devil, is the first in a planned series of ten novels featuring Jared McKean, an ex-cop turned private investigator. He is burdened by both a Galahad complex and a tendency toward violence, but still hasn’t lost his essential sweetness. Terrell answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to her reading at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 11 at 1 p.m.
Published Friday, 3 February 2012
The Bruce Springsteen of American Poetry
Robert Pinsky, America’s preeminent Man of Letters, talks with Chapter 16 prior to his Chattanooga appearance next week
by Pablo Tanguay
February 2, 2012 Poet, translator, critic, professor: these are former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky’s day jobs. After hours, he also writes the poetry column for Slate, appears on television shows like The Simpsons and The Colbert Report, performs with jazz bands, and has shared the stage with Bruce Springsteen. If America can claim a Public Man of Letters, Pinsky is it. He will give a free public lecture, “The Value of the Arts and Humanities in Education and Society,” sponsored by the University of Tennessee and the Benwood Foundation in Chattanooga, on February 7 at 7 p.m. in the Roland Hayes Auditorium of the UTC Fine Arts Building. The event is free and open to the public.
Published Thursday, 2 February 2012
A Radical Act of Love
When his grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, memoirist Robert Leleux unexpectedly found his chance to have, at last, a happy family
by Margaret Renkl
January 27, 2012 The Living End: A Memoir of Forgetting and Forgiving is the story of the way Robert Leleux navigates the labyrinth of hospitals and specialists he is cast into when his beloved grandmother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. To anyone unfamiliar with Leleux’s sense of humor and unerring ability to locate and memorialize absurdity in all its guises, this will no doubt sound like a dreary tale best avoided until life offers no way around it. In fact it is an absolute pleasure to read this gentle, funny, deeply wise memoir of how an encounter with incurable illness turns a boy into a man, and angry people into a family again. Leleux answered questions from Chapter 16 via email prior to his appearance at Parnassus Books in Nashville on January 30 at 6 p.m.
Published Friday, 27 January 2012
Beginning with a Voice
It’s been a long road to publication for Thomas P. Balázs, but his new story collection is well worth the wait
by Susannah Felts
January 26, 2012 Despite the science-fiction origin of its title, the nine stories in Thomas P. Balázs’s debut collection, Omicron Ceti III, offer journeys into dark and quite disparate corners of this very real world. Wide-ranging in subject, the stories are linked by their characters’ fumbling, consuming desire for connection, and by the comic qualities that Balázs deftly draws out of their lonely and sometimes painful circumstances. Balázs will read from Omicron Ceti III in Chattanooga on January 29, 3 p.m., at Winder Binder Books, and on February 20, 7 p.m., at the Jewish Community Federation.
Published Thursday, 26 January 2012
Family Drama and Unfinished Romance
Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, talks with Chapter 16 about her new book, The Lake of Dreams
by Sarah Norris
January 25, 2012 Kim Edwards’s debut novel, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, sold more than four million copies in the United States alone and spent 122 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Edwards answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to her appearance at “Literacy is Key: A Book & Author Affair” on January 26 at 10 a.m. at the University of Memphis. The program will also feature remarks by Lisa Patton, author of Yankee Doodle Dixie, and Ace Atkins, author of The Ranger, and proceeds will support both Literacy Mid-South and Reading is Fundamental. For information and tickets, please click here.
Published Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Europe’s Bloody Borderlands
Timothy Snyder talks with Chapter 16 about the peoples and territories trapped between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia during the 1930s and 1940s
by Tim Boyd
January 24, 2012 In the bestselling Bloodlands, which has been critically acclaimed and widely translated, Timothy Snyder argues that the systematic killings in the Nazi death camps were part of the same arc of violence as the mass starving inflicted on the Ukraine by the Soviets in the 1930s and the extra-legal killings perpetrated by Germans and Russians alike during their occupation of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. Snyder answered questions from Chapter 16 prior to his appearance at the University of Memphis on January 26 at 6:30 p.m. in the UC Theater.
Published Tuesday, 24 January 2012
A Lifelong Task
Poet Alicia Ostriker talks to Chapter 16 about wrestling with literary and cultural tradition
by Maria Browning
January 23, 2012 An author of both groundbreaking criticism and acclaimed poetry, Alicia Ostriker has devoted much of her work to a feminist transformation of literary and cultural tradition. Whether arguing for recognition of women’s poetry as a genre in its own right or recasting the stories of the Bible from a feminist perspective, Ostriker is a radical with a deep respect for her roots. Ostriker will read from her work on January 26 at 7 p.m. in Buttrick Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus in Nashville.
Published Monday, 23 January 2012
Not of This Place
Pamela Schoenewaldt talks with Chapter 16 about immigrants’ stories and the art of historical fiction
by Faye Jones
January 19, 2012 When We Were Strangers, the debut novel of Knoxvillian Pamela Schoenewaldt, captures the risk and struggle of nineteenth-century immigration through the experience of a young Italian woman, Irma Vitale. Schoenewaldt will read from When We Were Strangers on January 23 at the Hodges Library on the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee. She will be joined by Marina Maccari-Clayton of the UT History Department, whose specialty is Italian-American immigration history.
Published Thursday, 19 January 2012
In Praise of Making Things Up
The Night Circus might be set in the nineteenth century, but Erin Morgenstern is no one’s historical novelist
by Sarah Norris
January 18, 2012 Despite being turned down by dozens of agents, Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus went on to become a bestseller and was published in more than thirty countries. Summit Entertainment, the production company behind the Twilight series, bought film rights, as Morgenstern found herself the star of a real-life fairy tale. Erin Morgenstern will discuss and sign copies of The Night Circus on January 26 at 6:15 p.m. at the Nashville Public Library, as part of the Salon@615 series.
Published Wednesday, 18 January 2012
An Original Take on an American Original
Prize-winning historian Sean Wilentz provides a fresh perspective on Bob Dylan
by Paul McCoy
January 17, 2012 Few musical artists in the last century are as revered and reviled, discussed and dissected as Bob Dylan. With an eclectic career spanning fifty years, Dylan provides an astonishingly deep well of material for writers and critics to explore—and explore they have, though rarely to such critical acclaim as the work of Sean Wilentz has received. With The New York Times bestseller Bob Dylan in America, now out in paperback, Wilentz provides a unique series of takes on specific periods in Dylan’s life and work, including his time in Nashville. He answered questions from Chapter 16 by email.
Published Tuesday, 17 January 2012
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