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By Renuka, May 2, 2013 9:01 pm

May 2, The Tennessean, Brad Schmitt

About a decade ago, Augusten Burroughs hit the New York Times best-seller list twice with the hilarious memoirs “Running With Scissors” and “Dry,” though his struggles with family, upbringing and sobriety were often dark.

Now, Burroughs is out with a direct, at-times harsh self-help guide, “This Is How” ($24.99, St. Martin’s Press), that has occasional moments of humor.

Your first books on your family and getting sober were hilarious! Well, and painful and brutally honest. I’m wondering how you go from there to writing a self-help book.

People over the years have thanked me for writing “Dry” because it has been helpful for them and their recovery. And “Running With Scissors” too. “It was helpful.” Oh, OK, well, I’m glad it was helpful, but I wasn’t trying to be helpful.

The one question I get asked over and over is, “How did you survive — blank?” And I just realized I wanted to write a book, this is how. Here’s how to fix your own head.

I’ve always been a do-it-yourselfer. When I make a mess, I make my own mess of my own life and I put it back together. And I guess I realized that there’s useful stuff in that. The fact that I’ve always been a fix-it-myself kind of guy could be really useful for other people who aren’t necessarily that way.

If I had never gone on a book tour, if I had never met the people who read me, I don’t think I would’ve written the book. If I didn’t have people coming up to me all the time and telling me their own stories and what they struggle with.

I don’t want people to waste time … trying to fix themselves when I can think of some really direct methods to accomplish it.

Sometimes the tone of the book is super direct.

There’s too much hand-holding. I don’t like a nurturing, hand-holding feel-good kind of book. It’s a book for the way that I see people really are.

One of the chapters in there is about suicide. And that was something that, you know, we have way too many kids kill themselves. And one thing I have not written about in my memoirs was the fact that I was going to kill myself. I was like, I had a plan and I knew how I was going to do it.

It was only when I actually thought it through doing all the steps — I really imagined it like a movie — and I saw, this thing is not gonna freakin’ work!

I’m not gonna be alive to enjoy the peace and freedom. I’m not actually gonna be aware of any of that. The last thing that I’m going to be aware of is bleeding out in a bathtub of water. And I’m going to freak out when I see that. And then, I’m gonna die.

So I’m gonna be as miserable as I am now, with an extra layer of, oh, what did I do? And that’s gonna be it. There’s not going to be that peace and release.

So it’s not that I actually want to kill myself. What I wanted to do is end my life. And that I can do. … I can actually step out of my life. I didn’t have to kill myself. I just had to end my life, so I did.

I moved to a place where I didn’t know anybody and I changed my first, middle and last names. … What I do know is that I stepped outside my universe into another one. And it’s a huge, huge world.

Let’s talk about specifics. In how to find love, you say you’re in favor of online dating.

I’m all in favor of online dating. I’m all in favor of anything that exposes you to people you’re not going to run into on your very narrow path.

Most people, they go to the office, see the same people, go to the same places for lunch. You can’t do that and then moan about being single. Because what are the chances that the person you’re meant to be with also goes to the same dry cleaners? That’s asking too much.

Page 39 — “There is no shame in deciding to be fat.”

There’s not. There are people who are fat that want to be thin. And there are people who are fat who wish they wanted to be thin.

If you’re fat, thin is theoretical. It seems like you’d be happier thin. I live in New York City, and I used to feel like, I wanna have a really cool apartment. But I didn’t want it. I just wanted to want it.

Being thin is not what the scale says to you — it’s about popularity, it’s about how many followers you have on Facebook and Twitter. You can’t lie to yourself about why you want the thing you want.

Have you been to Nashville before?

I went once, to Vanderbilt, for a speaking engagement. I love Nashville and I love the South.

It’s funny, when I first started, my publisher would send me out on book tours — it’d be sending me to New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco. I was like, yeah, I like the South, Alabama, Atlanta. And they were like, no, that’s not the kind of book that’ll play there. And I was like, yeah, it is.

My family’s from the South. … I spent summers down there. I’ve had people come up to me and say, “I disapprove of everything about you, but my God, I relate to every word.”

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By Renuka, May 2, 2013 7:29 pm

May 2, All Access Music Group

The COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM (CMHOF) and the NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION have come together to present “STRING CITY: NASHVILLE’S TRADITION OF MUSIC AND PUPPETRY,” happening THURSDAY, JUNE 20th, at 8p (CT) at the CMHOF in NASHVILLE.

Admission is available for a $30 per person donation to the CMHOF and NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION, and it includes the show, as well as a pre-show reception at 7p (CT). Tickets may be reserved beginning THURSDAY, MAY 9th.

“The wide appeal of Country music and NASHVILLE’s deep roots in the genre’s history attract tourists from all over the country and the world,” said NASHVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY Director KENT OLIVER. “STRING CITY appeals to the same crowd of music enthusiasts and demonstrates that puppetry is a fine art form, attracting fans of all interests and ages, not just the younger ones.”

This performance launches the 2013 NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL PUPPET FESTIVAL.

For more information or to make a donation, visit www.nashvillepuppetfestival.com.

Read more: http://www.allaccess.com/net-news/archive/story/118010/cmhof-and-nashville-public-library-come-together#ixzz2SAJErYG3
Follow us: @allaccess on Twitter | all.access on Facebook

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By Renuka, May 2, 2013 7:27 pm

May 2, Nashville Scene, Sean Kinch and Chapter16.org

Isabel Allende has gained a large and devoted international readership by revealing the dark secrets and searing pains that afflict the human heart. Her stories are filled with incidents — journeys, missions, fights and love affairs — but the real action takes place on the inside, where her characters’ consciences collide with their passions. In Allende’s new novel, Maya’s Notebook, a teenage girl living with her grandparents in Berkeley, Calif., begins a downward spiral into drug addiction after the death of her loving grandfather. A grandmother herself, Allende clearly sympathizes with Maya’s Nini, who feels helpless against the very real demons that haunt her granddaughter.

When Maya’s drug habit causes her to run afoul of the law, Nini convinces her to leave Berkeley and go to a rehabilitation clinic in Oregon. There she takes tentative steps toward lasting sobriety but eventually feels cramped and runs away. A harrowing series of events — including Maya’s pursuit by violent criminals — leads Nini to send her to stay with an old friend on a remote island, Chiloé, off the coast of her native Chile. Deprived of most modern amenities, Maya fills her journal with the story of how her life took its fateful turns. This premise gives Allende an effective vehicle for exploring the psychological trauma that led to her heroine’s downfall and for detailing the halting process of recovery. As in all of Allende’s work, the spirit world overlaps the material one; helpful ghosts arrive at propitious intervals to steer the living toward the right paths.

Allende answered questions via email prior to her appearance Friday, May 3, at the Nashville Public Library:

Maya’s story is not simply about healing; it’s also about redemption: She must find ways to make up for the pain she has caused her family — her grandmother, in particular. How is the relationship between those two sides of her story, the psychological and the moral, best understood?

When I write fiction I don’t intend to deliver a message, just tell a story. In the rural community of the island, Maya needs to learn that there is natural justice, a law of reciprocity: You have to give as much as you receive. Sometimes she can’t pay a favor to the person who has done it to her, but she is morally obliged to render an equivalent favor to somebody else. Without reciprocity it would be very difficult to survive in the harsh conditions of Chiloé (especially in winter). From being a spoiled brat, Maya learns quickly that if she wants to be accepted by the community, she has to be useful.

In Maya’s Notebook and in other of your novels, you seem to strike a balance between darkness and light, between the designs of evildoers and the fortitude of the virtuous. Do you consciously try not to tip the scales too far in either direction?

My intention is never to preach. I don’t strike a balance on purpose; that’s the way the story unfolds. I have lived a long life, and in my experience light and darkness always go together, like the principle of photography. How could we know light without knowing darkness?

This novel resembles your other novels (the del Valle books, especially) that cover a great geographical range. Your novels demonstrate that the world was “global” long before corporate capitalism became ubiquitous. Do you make your novels international by design, or do your characters naturally become global wanderers?

I am a global wanderer, as you say. I was the daughter of diplomats; I have been a traveler, a political refugee and now an immigrant. I have no roots, so naturally I am interested in people who live in the margins of the society, the outsiders, the vagabonds. They make great characters in literature.

You have said you generally do not know why you become obsessed with certain subjects until months after the books about them have been published. Have you discovered yet how Maya’s Notebook is connected to your life?

I wrote Maya’s Notebook when all my grandchildren and their friends were teenagers. They were exposed to all kinds of dangers — drugs, alcohol, crime, violence, pornography, etc. — and their parents could not protect them. I was afraid for them, and this novel was a sort of exorcism: By writing about the worst scenario, I would keep the demons at bay. In a way it worked, because now all those kids are safely in college. They survived adolescence, while poor Maya went through hell. Fortunately for her, however, she was in hell only a few months, and she was rescued just in time. It is no coincidence that her Chilean grandmother rescued her!

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

Email arts@nashvillescene.com.

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By Renuka, May 1, 2013 4:25 pm

May, Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine

Excerpt:

21 Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville International Puppet Festival 

Not since Mr. Rogers populated the Neighborhood of Make-Believe have so many puppets gathered in one place. The Nashville International Puppet Festival summons performers from Japan, China, France, Argentina, Germany, and across the U.S. to transform Music City’s vibrant downtown into a world of wonder. The Nashville Public Library hosts this three-day menagerie, which features whimsical shows and a series of interactive audience workshops presented on elaborate stages. Tens of thousands of kiddos gather to celebrate the art of storytelling through puppetry, with bonus attractions that include a colorful parade, exuberant street performers, and live music from Coal Train Railroad, Davey Ukulele and the Gag Time Gang, and tribute band The WannaBeatles. This puppet party’s not just for children, though. Two soirées—“Martinis and Marionettes,” held at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, and “String City,” at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Ford Theater—pair cocktails with puppeteering. As Pinocchio might say, “You’ve got no strings to hold you down,” so see you there! Most events free

Link: http://spiritmag.com/calendar/

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By Renuka, April 29, 2013 2:45 pm

April 29, HBCUSTORY, C.A. deGregory, Ph.D.

Dear Friends of HBCUSTORY:

There is a Bible passage in which Jesus conveys the difficulty of a prophet being accepted in his own land. While I certainly don’t consider myself a woman of the cloth, I can proudly say that the approximately 100+ attendees of the inauguralHBCUSTORY Symposium braved torrential rain and a number of flash flood warnings to support our efforts. Many of them were reticent to leave after our dismissal even though the library announced several times that it was reaching the end of its day. It still feels like it was all a dream! I cannot put into words what I feel in at this moment.

On behalf of the HBCUSTORY staff, as well as our presenting partners Nashville Public Library, and the Nashville Public Library Foundation, I would like to thank you once more for your participation and contributions to the success of the inaugural HBCUSTORY Symposium.

Thank you to the dynamic scholars who presented their work–ya’ll showed out! Thank you to NPL’s Special Collections Manger Andrea Blackman for your belief in this dream (Rattlers STRIKE)! Thank you to our Symposium attendees, to our sponsors Paul Quinn College, HBCU Digest, The HBCU Nation,WKND, Living Your Best Life Radio, Representative Harold Love, Jr.,Martin Imagery, The HBCU Career Center, Solo Noir, Windsor Neckwearand Braces Sweets for their support. And, last but definitely not least, a big thank you to our volunteers for their smiles and energy. The success of the Symposium is each of yours to bask in. And for the 400+ of you who watched, tweeted, followed and liked our posts throughout the day, thank you too!

The highlight of my day was the presentation of theStoryteller of the Year Awards to the family of Fisk University alumna and Special Collections Librarian Beth Madison Howse and to Paul Quinn College President Michael J. Sorrell, Esq! Prez’s address was epic, demonstrating once again, why he is a legend in his own right. “Aunt” Beth’s HBCUSTORY and legacy will live on…forever! I couldn’t be more proud.

Our work is not done. Please share the link to the Symposium’s taped sessions at http://ustre.am/:2argZ with your family, friends, co-workers, church members, classmates…in short, share it with everyone you know! And please view and download our HBCUSTORY Symposium Commemorative Booklet 2013 online.

Please continue to actively follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our website at HBCUSTORY.com, as we continue to present, promote and preserve stories of the HBCU community. It is our pledge to honor the memories you’ve entrusted to us each and every day. There is much to do and we hope you’ll join us in making HBCU memories matter!

In supreme gratitude,

Crystal A. deGregory, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Editor

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By Renuka, April 28, 2013 2:37 pm

April 28, Tennessean’s Ms. Cheap, Mary Hance

On Wednesday May 1 The Metro Library’s “Thinking Out of the (Lunch) Box” Spring Series of conversations with a philosophical flair, will feature the Rev. Becca Stevens, who will talk about “The Mission of Thistle Farms.”

Stevens is an Episcopal priest serving as chaplain at St. Augustine’s at Vanderbilt University, and is the founder of Magdalene and Thistle Farms. There swill be a free lunch at 11:30 a.m. (while supplies last) and then Stevens will speak from noon – 1 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Main Library at 615 Church St.

Thinking Out of the (Lunch )Box, which is presented by Vanderbilt University Philosophy Dept. and Friends of the Nashville Public Library, is free and open to all; no reservations required. A donation of $5 is suggested. Details: 615- 862-5800

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By Renuka, April 24, 2013 4:53 pm

April 24, Tennessean’s Ms. Cheap, Mary Hance

Reach Ms. Cheap at 615-259-8282 or mscheap@tennessean.com. Check her out at about:www.facebook.com/mscheap; @Ms_Cheap on Twitter; and on her blog at Tennessean.com/mscheap. Catch her every Thursday at 11 a.m. on WTVF-Channel 5’s “Talk of the Town.”