WNBA Nashville ChapterWe gather, celebrate, and serve book lovers in the
Greater Nashville area and beyond |
|
Southern Festival of Books 2024
UPDATE! Less than a month until the 2024 Southern Festival of Books! Humanities Tennessee has JUST announced the schedule for the Festival which will be held October 26-27 at the Tennessee State Library and Archive, Tennessee State Museum, and Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. Looking to help make the Festival happen? First-time volunteers and returning volunteers are needed to fulfill volunteer roles prior to and during the big Festival weekend. There are loads of opportunities from session room monitor and greeter to bookplate sticker affixer and clean-up crew. Please note that volunteers will mainly work outdoors, in all weather conditions, and will be asked to stand for extended periods. We will do our best to accommodate our volunteers with special needs or limited mobility. All shift times are approximately three hours. As a volunteer, you are invited to our festival Saturday Night Party where you will be welcomed, appreciated, and thanked for your time and service to the Southern Festival of Books! Be looking for opportunities to volunteer for WNBA at the Festival in our booth and at our Coffee With Authors event in addition to volunteering for the Festival itself. Both are great ways to promote reading and books in Nashville! Authors in the Round, the annual fundraising special event featuring 40+ Festival authors, will be held Friday, October 25th at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Mark your calendar now! Reservations are required. The Experience of an SFoB HostBy Mary Marraccini
I used to think the library was our house and vice versa. Either way, it was full of books, had a bench to lie on, and I was always with a grown up. Santa left my presents and I put out reindeer food. What I know to be true was that if books were involved it was A-okay! It was the time of the Korean War, and with uncles on duty, we had something of a family boarding house. I was the lone princess. I had readers-in-waiting and castles built of books. Years later, I still hang on to those days. My shelves include books from the early 1950's that I still pick up and read. A Child's Garden of Verses is near my bedside. A Lantern in Her Hand (Bess Streeter Aldrich, 1928) gets an annual re-read. Little has changed. Do you love the Southern Festival of Books as much as I do? Is it on your calendar as soon as it's published? Aaah, you're a bookie like me! And you're part of WNBA Nashville so we may be related. Books define us, lead us to discover greater things and are our happy places. Each book that I enjoy is one someone else has read or is reading. That just thrills me. l am so blessed that my parents, grandparents, and others have instilled in me the love of books. I am equally fond of authors. They are the dreamers and writers that take us out of our own environment and into a world of our own. For that reason, I was delighted to have been asked to "host" authors as they present their books at the SFoB. Authors are easy to talk to, they love sharing the written word, especially their own, and they graciously tout the works of writers of all genres. My initial foray into presenting authors began with a young mom, equally as shy as I am. Her book, Cherry Blossoms by Kim Hooper, is a tender story about a man and his mother. I loved it and we breezed through the presentation quickly. She received raucous applause from all. My next authors were a trio of women whose books are for Young Adults. (Sharon Cameron, Bluebird; L.M. Elliott, Louisa June and the Nazis in the Waves; Amanda McCrina, The Silent Unseen). Each is a story pertaining to WWII , but not in ways I'd ever heard of. I was stunned by how little I knew. I ran to the signing tent to get double copies of each for my teen and preteen grandchildren. Last year I was beyond excited to present Patti Callahan Henry and The Secret Book of Flora Lea. There isn't much I can add to a resume like hers. Patti is sweet, soft spoken, and funny. My teenage grandsons think she's super cool. That just says it all! I've yet to meet my next author, but I look forward to whomever joins me. I hope that you too will find literary excitement this October 26-27th. The authors in the signing tent will be happy to meet you, take selfies, and sign your favorite book(s). I'll be watching for you! Sept. Book ClubThe September evening book club was fancy, fun and delicious! We met on the 12th Floor of the Vertis building on a beautiful but rainy night. Our author, Chantha Ngoun, called in via Zoom from Cambodia and her co-writer Kim Green was on hand in person to serve us the crazy addictive papaya pickles. We discussed the scarves handmade at Chantha's women's center and it turns out that Kim has about 100 of them still available for sale.
So Kim will be hosting the next book club on Thursday, November 21, and we can all shop those breathtaking scarves for holiday gifts. Kim has chosen James by Percival Everett as our next selection. James is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award which will be presented on Wednesday, November 20. Maybe we can celebrate a winner at our next meeting! BAP Fair UpdateThe Books, Authors, and Publishers Fair has been moved to March 1, 2025, to coincide with the Nashville Wellness Fest. Both events will be held at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Click on the links above for more information.
Did you realize there are more pages on our website than this one? Click above the website header on the three lines or the plus sign to find the links to our other pages. You'll find lots more content and information! And don't forget to let us know when you have news for our Member News page! We want to share your accomplishments with our members! |
Join WNBA Nashville for our Coffee With Authors event at the Southern Festival of Books on Saturday, October 26th, at the Tennessee State Museum. This year's authors will thrill your heart while they talk about writing Romance novels!
Use the QR code to register now! Tickets are free and they sell out quickly so don't wait to get yours! 
We are starting a new feature on the website that will spotlight a few of our members so that we can get to know one another a little bit better. There's never enough time to socialize so maybe this will give us a head start on getting acquainted! Our first spotlight is on our Coffee With Authors chair Jennifer Sellers.
Hi!! My name is Jennifer Sellers. I’m a self-appointed Romance advocate and I first joined the WNBA at the Southern Festival of Books in 2022 By day I am a Financial Wellness Specialist teaching finance and investing to corporate employees, a profession I ended up in completely by accident. I’m also a veteran, having served in the US Navy. It’s a fun fact I like to share because almost no one believes me. However, if my knees and back could talk they would have a lot to say about it. My favorite thing I ever did for myself is pursue my degree in Creative Writing at Lipscomb University. It was hard and so so sooooooo much fun and I wish every day I could repeat it over and over. I also have a Masters in Management from Lipscomb, and, as grateful as I am, I wouldn’t do it again if forced. By night I am a book nerd extraordinaire, organizing events such as Coffee with Authors and gobbling up as many ARCs as I can reasonably commit to. I have an amazing husband who was dumb enough to marry me on the beach during the BP oil spill of 2010. I, however, was smart enough to give him an economic disaster to reference so he would never forget how long we have been married. Aren’t I sweet? We have two amazing energetic and hilarious kids who will both have birthdays this month (September 2024) turning nine and six. The kids and I love crafting and getting messy and all of us love being outside together doing almost anything. Right now, I am trying to share my love of reading with my oldest, but she is more interested in writing. She just finished her first short story titled Pencil Brothers. This girl is seriously amazing, and she won’t even be nine until Monday. I need her dedication so I can finish my own manuscript! If you like to craft, read romance, write romance, talk about romance books, have kids that are the same age as mine, or are simply fun to hang out with please reach out. I love getting to know new people. I am terrible about posting on social media, but better about responding. You can find me on Instagram @jennifer_n_sellers and @jn_sellers. one is personal and one is books and theater only. Pick your favorite and send me a message! xoxo Jennifer
November 16, 2024 1610:00 am Zoom Book Discussion 
In Montana in the summer of 1872, Crow Mary marries Abe Farwell, a white fur trader, and accompanies him to his trading post in the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan, Canada. In the spring of 1873, they are preparing to return to Montana when they witness the Cypress Hills Massacre, in which forty innocent Nakoda are killed by a drunken gang. Following the massacre, Crow Mary single-handedly rescues five Nakoda women who are being held captive and abused by the gang. Thus, she sets off a whirlwind of colliding cultures that brings out the worst and best in the cast of unforgettable characters and pushes the love between Farwell and Crow Mary to the breaking point. Inspired by the life of the real Crow Mary and endorsed by her great-granddaughter, Crow elders, and Crow scholars, this is an epic love story that sweeps across decades, showcases the beauty of the natural world, and probes the intimacies of a marriage and one woman’s heart.
This book discussion will be held on Zoom.
Contact [email protected] for the link. Join us on Zoom for our next Literary Society meeting. October 19 at 10:00 am WNBA Loves Books!
We write them, we publish them, we sell them, we teach children and adults to read and appreciate them, we loan them, we borrow them, we give them, we read them, we listen to them, and we share them with friends. --Lee Fairbend |
About the Nashville Chapter
Since 1955, the Nashville chapter of the Women’s National Book Association has been promoting reading, supporting literacy, and advancing the role of women in the community of the book. We offer informative programs and networking opportunities from September through May, a book discussion group that meets six times a year, and various charitable and outreach activities
|
Follow us on social media!
|
Questions?
All events, with the exception of the annual Christmas dinner and the Garden Party, are free and open to the public. For more information, or to request a Zoom code, contact [email protected]