Emily Choate | writer

My first piece of the new year is up today at Chapter 16. I hope you’ll check out poet Jane Hicks’ new knockout collection, The Safety of Small Things. From my review (which you can read here): “Throughout East TN poet Jane Hicks’ stunning new collection, The Safety of Small Things, the unseen elements of our lives reveal themselves in vibrant, insistent ways. Sometimes they console. Sometimes they menace. With masterful discernment, Hicks enables us to sense the many-layered truths contained in each moment and to marvel at their resonance.”

This week, Chapter 16 has rerun a piece I wrote in 2019 about an evolving lifelong fascination with Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” I loved writing this piece, and I’m so grateful to Maria Browning and Chapter 16 for giving it such a good home. You can read my essay, titled “Some Words to the Close and Holy Darkness,” here.

I’m excited to share my latest for Chapter 16. I love writing poetry roundup reviews, and these three memorable new collections are worth your time: Erin Hoover’s No Spare People, L.S. McKee’s Creature, Wing, Heart, Machine, and Shuly Xóchitl Cawood’s Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough. You can read my review at Chapter16.org.

My latest review for Chapter 16, up this week, covers Cookeville writer Monic Ductan’s debut story collection, Daughters of Muscadine. These linked stories entangle the historical and psychological legacies of several generations of Black families in Muscadine, a fictional rural town in northeast Georgia. You can read my review over at Chapter 16.

I’m delighted to share my recent review of poet Lisa Dordal’s new, innovative collection, Next Time You Come Home. Dordal worked with a huge trove of letters written to her by her late mother, Milly, to create the poems in this book, “distilling” them and shaping them. The result is a startling, memorable exchange between daughter and mother. You can read my review at Chapter 16.

It’s new Ron Rash novel time! Last month, I had the chance to share my thoughts about Rash’s melancholy reflection on love and loss, The Caretaker. Rash is one of my favorites, so this was a treat. You can read my review over at Chapter 16 (another one of my favorites).

I really enjoyed the chance to write a new piece celebrating Georgia writer Janisse Ray for Chapter 16. Ray’s devotion to the natural world–and to bringing that world onto the page in innovative ways–has been a beacon for so many of us. Ray will be the keynote speaker at the MTSU Write Fall Conference on Oct. 6-7. I’m happy to say that I’ll be leading a craft session at the conference too. You can read my new piece here, and you can find the MTSU Write conference schedule and sign-up details here.

I look forward to leading a virtual discussion this week on Richard Powers’ masterwork of environmental fiction, The Overstory. Tuesday, July 18^th, at 7 PM. Join us via Humanities Tennessee’s Facebook Live or YouTube feeds. I’m delighted to participate as Humanities TN celebrates 50 years spent supporting all kinds of vital projects across our state!

Update: Click here to watch this event. Serenity Gerbman and I had a wonderful chat about The Overstory and about going off to the woods to write. Also, you can watch me talk with my hands a lot.

I really enjoyed spending time with (and writing some thoughts about) three recent poetry collections–Denton Loving’s Tamp, Evie Shockley’s suddenly we, and Susan O’Dell Underwood’s Splinter. Each of these collections finds a memorable, vibrant language for collisions between the past and the present. My review is up this week at Chapter16.

Dream Assignment Alert! As part of Humanities Tennessee’s 50 Books/HT50 Project, I had the chance to take a fresh look at Richard Powers’ masterwork of ecological fiction, The Overstory. This piece, up today at Chapter 16, became an encounter with wildness—in the novel, the Smokies, and my own nature. On July 18th, I’ll host a virtual discussion of the novel. Thank you, Humanities TN and Maria Browning at Chapter 16!