Fiction
Teaching and Unteaching—and Entertaining All the Way
For more than three decades, Patricia McKissack has been writing children's books that bring to life the stories, and the truth, of her ancestors
by Susannah Felts
As she was coming of age in Nashville in the 1950s, there were many places award-winning children's author Patricia McKissack was not allowed to go. She remembers hotels and restaurants that forbade African Americans entry, and movie theaters with a separate doorway in the alley for black patrons. The farthest reaches of the Grand Ole Opry's balcony, known as the buzzard's roost, was the only seating open to African Americans, McKissack recalls. She never partook: "My grandfather said that watermelons would bloom in January if any of his children went down there. 'We don't sit in no buzzard's roost,' he said. 'We're human beings, not buzzards.'"
Published Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Down and Dirty
There's nothing cozy about Michael Wiley's new mystery, The Bad Kitty Lounge
by Faye Jones
Michael Wiley, nominated for a Shamus award for the first novel, The Last Striptease, has a style reminiscent of earlier hard-boiled detective novels. His characters are world-weary and cynical, unsurprised by any bad thing that happens—and a lot of bad things happen in his new novel, The Bad Kitty Lounge. Wiley will read from the book at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on March 12 at 2 p.m.
Published Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Danger, Demolition, and Desire
Jennie Bentley talks about her third Do-It-Yourself mystery, Plaster and Poison, as well as the lure of "a hot guy with power tools"
by Lyda Phillips
As both a licensed real estate agent and someone who has ripped out drywall herself, Jennie Bentley writes about what she knows, decorating it in a palate of romantic colors with just enough dark accents to provide tension. She spoke with Chapter 16 about her third romantic Do-It-Yourself mystery, Plaster and Poison, as well as her upcoming real-estate mystery series set in Nashville, before launching a multi-stop book tour around the state.
Published Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Ties That Bind
Author-physician Abraham Verghese talks with Chapter 16 about his dual career and his latest novel, Cutting For Stone
by Paul V. Griffith
An accomplished physician and teacher, Abraham Verghese put his life on hold to attend the celebrated Iowa Writers Workshop. Since graduating from the program in 1991, he's balanced his day job with a writing career, publishing two nonfiction books and contributing to the likes of Esquire and The Atlantic Monthly. In his first novel, Cutting For Stone, Verghese tells the story of Marion Stone, an orphaned twin conceived of an illicit affair between an Indian nun and a dashing but volatile British surgeon. With wise and compelling prose, the epic tale weaves its themes of love, betrayal, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice together with the destinies of a country and a proud yet fractured family. Verghese appears February 26 at noon in 208 Light Hall on the Vanderbilt University campus, and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on February 27 at 2 p.m.
Published Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Writ Large
Intrepid adventurer and National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis talks with Chapter 16
by Ed Tarkington
National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis is a breed apart, one of the last survivors of the glory days of magazine fiction and feature writing, the age when writers were bold and swaggering and confident and even a little dangerous—a ruddy, bearded wild man of the mountains, an intrepid travel writer and war correspondent, and a consummate prose stylist. He speaks with Chapter 16 in advance of his Nashville appearance at Montgomery Bell Academy on March 1.
Published Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Debunking Revolutionary War Myths
Gary Paulsen, the wildly popular and prolific children's author, talks with Chapter 16 about his latest novel, Woods Runner
by Lyda Phillips
In Woods Runner, Gary Paulsen creates a tale that returns to the wilderness of his beloved Hatchet but takes it back in time to the Revolutionary War. "I wanted to dispute the mythic, clean, even antiseptic qualities in many histories, because war is never, not ever, clean," he writes. He will read at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville on March 2. Prior to the visit, he took some time to correspond by email with Chapter 16.
Published Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Building Momentum
Michael Connelly discusses his popular detective series, his journalism background, and the future of the book
by Michael Ray Taylor
A former crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Connelly discusses with Chapter 16 the slow death of local newspapers; his latest Harry Bosch installment, Nine Dragons; electronic books; and his popular legal-series protagonist, Mickey Haller. Connelly will speak at Currey Ingram Academy in Nashville on February 20 at 10 a.m.
Published Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Into the Cold
J.T. Ellison discusses her fourth Taylor Jackson mystery and how much she loves riding shotgun with Nashville's homicide police
by Lyda Phillips
J.T. Ellison's fourth mystery novel The Cold Room once again features Nashville homicide detective Taylor Jackson. This time around, Jackson's investigation takes her into the twisted horrors of necrophilia and then through a macabre chase involving reenactments of famous paintings both here and in Europe. Ellison talks with Chapter 16 about Nashville, her writing, and the delights of research, which in her case includes some quality time with Nashville's boys in blue.
Published Monday, 15 February 2010
Fragile, Broken, Burned
In his new story collection, Richard Bausch digs beneath the tough exterior of his protagonists—male and female alike—to find their fears, weaknesses, and dreams
by Clay Risen
Memphis writer Richard Bausch has long been known as a master of macho, a chronicler of men. But as his latest story collection, Something Is Out There, demonstrates, Bausch is, if anything, a master of the anti-macho, a writer who digs beneath the tough exterior of his protagonists—male and female alike—to find their fears, weaknesses, and dreams.
Published Wednesday, 10 February 2010
A Truth Universally Acknowledged
With Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, Beth Pattillo writes a romance Jane Austen fans will love
by Faye Jones
To review a book with Jane Austen at its heart is, for a passionate Austen fan, a risky endeavor. The subject is powerfully attractive, but the risk of disappointment is huge: few writers have the requisite respect and skill to follow in Austen's footsteps. In Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, Nashville resident Beth Pattillo passes the test with a romance that will appeal to non-Austenites, as well. Pattillo appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville on February 11 at 7 p.m.
Published Tuesday, 9 February 2010
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