Critics' Picks
SUSAN FORD WILTSHIRE Classical Considerations: Useful Wisdom from Greece and Rome (Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, 128 pp., $14.95) includes pieces from writers and non-writers. Perhaps two of the most familiar names to Scene readers are legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and Tennessee state trial judge Ellen Hobbs Lyle. Just as familiar in certain circles is Susan Ford Wiltshire, the well-known classics professor at Vanderbilt, who contributes a brief piece on “Grace” and served as one of the book’s editors. Wiltshire’s piece stands along Roger Rosenblatt’s as one of the best in Classical Considerations. Rosenblatt, an essayist for Time magazine and PBS’s The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, is one of the wittiest and most erudite writers around, moving easily from Shakespeare to Charles Portis to Rosanne Cash. Still, Classical Considerations, unlike Caesar’s wife, isn’t above reproach. The format of brief selected quotations, sometimes consisting of only a few lines, presented in the original and then translated, with the contributors’ remarks printed en face, can feel better suited to a desk calendar for graduates of liberal arts colleges. On the other hand, it can seem something close to a masterpiece, a bracelet made from bright jewels of wisdom. Decide for yourself at 6 p.m. Sept. 14, when Wiltshire appears at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, accompanied by fellow writers Keith Fahey, William Race and Timothy Winters. –Diann Blakely and Stanley Booth
KILLER NASHVILLE! Mayhem, revenge, deceit, pursuit: no, we’re not talking about the governor’s race. We’re talking about crime, the time-honored sport of kings and the favorite method of R-and-R for millions of otherwise nonviolent Americans. The Southeast Mystery Writers of America (SEMWA)—a division of Mystery Writers of America, the best-known national affiliation of crime and detective story writers—will host the first annual Killer Nashville! mystery conference, Sept. 15-16. Participants include authors, publishers, agents (including the William Morris Agency), producers, lawyers, playwrights, editors, packagers, publicists, your random forensic psychologist and expert on prisoner extradition, as well as members of the national Mystery Writers of America and probably legions of bloodthirsty fans. The conference will offer panel discussions, breakout sessions, manuscript critiques and book signings. The guest of honor is Carol Higgins Clark, author of the popular series about private investigator Regan Reilly, among other books. Other featured speakers include novelist and critic Reed Farrel Coleman, executive vice president of the MWA. Participating Nashvillians include novelist Mary Saums (author of the Willi Taft series), producer and screenwriter Clay Stafford, and local favorite Steven Womack, whose own Nashville-based series about Harry James Denton has been published from Japan to Germany to England—a good indication of the world’s awareness of Nashville as a “mystery town” alongside Los Angeles, New York City and Boston. “The fact that Nashville could support a major regional mystery conference,” Womack says, “is a measure of how much interest there is, of how many writers live in this area, and of how vital the genre is.” The cost of the event is $55; more information is available at www.killernashville.com. –Michael Sims
