W@W 2025 Events
All event times eastern
Book club registration has ended, and we want to Thank you for your enthusiastic response to our survey. We’re excited to announce that W@W will be distributing nearly 350 free copies of Lorrie Moore’s books to over 40 participating community book clubs.
If you responded on behalf of your book club, please watch your email for important information about our book-club-in-a-bag pickup event on Tuesday, March 4, at the Daily Ration.
TUESday
MARCH 4th, 6-8 PM EST
Location: The Daily Ration (1220 Dartmouth St, Chattanooga, TN 37405)
Founded in 2011, W@W offers people in the greater Chattanooga area opportunities to interact with some of the best Southern authors alive today. Over the last 14 years, we've hosted Terry Kay, Rick Bragg, Tayari Jones, Ron Rash, Robert Morgan, Daniel Wallace, Jericho Brown, and many others. This year, we are bringing Lorrie Moore, the current Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English, to Chattanooga in April for a series of free events. In anticipation of her arrival, W@W, in partnership with SoLit and The Book & Cover, want to offer readers like you the chance to get a complimentary set of her books to enjoy with your book club in preparation for her visit to Chattanooga in April.
Register your book club at this link to receive a book-club-in-a-bag — a commemorative tote with up to ten copies of your chosen title. The books will be available for pick up on Tuesday, March 4th at The Daily Ration (1220 Dartmouth Street) between 6-8pm. The person who submits the form must be present to collect the bag of books. We'll have delicious snacks, too. Come hang out!
We hope you will join us in this common read and in our Writers@Work events detailed below, all part of our celebration of exceptional literature by authors in the South! (The deadline for survey completion is Monday, February 17.)
Inside the Mind of Lorrie Moore: The Behind-the-Writer Interview
TUESDAY
APRIL 22ND, 6-8 PM EDT
Location: The Hunter Museum of American Art (10 Bluff View Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37403)
Enjoy beautiful views of the Tennessee River from the lobby of the Hunter Museum during Writers@Work's annual interview night. Ray Bassett, host and producer of Scenic Roots on WUTC, will interview Lorrie Moore about her life as a writer, her move to the South, and her experiences in the classroom. Join us at the Hunter Museum of American Art to ask questions, get your books signed, and mingle with other readers from the community while enjoying delicious bites at our author’s reception. This in-person event is free to the public, but registration is required. (Registration will open on April 1.)
The Craft of Writing with Lorrie Moore
WEDNESDAY
APRIL 23RD, 6-7:30 PM EDT
Location: ArtsBuild (301 E 11th St #300, Chattanooga, TN 37403)
Attention writers! W@W and SoLit invite you to visit ArtsBuild for a craft talk with Writers@Work's visiting author for 2025, Lorrie Moore. Her writing spans from short stories to novels to nonfiction. (She’s even written a children’s book.) Come listen to her discuss how she balances a writing life with a teaching career, what brings her inspiration, and what she’s working on now. Bring your questions and be prepared to take notes! Light refreshments will be served. This in-person event is free to the public, but registration is required. (Registration will open on April 1.)
Last Stop to Nashville
ThursDAY
APRIL 24Th, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM EDT
Location: ChattState’s Kimball Site (2100 Main Street, Kimball, TN 37347)
On her last stop as she makes her way back home to Nashville, Lorrie Moore, Writers@Work’s visiting author for 2025, will share her work with students and the public at the ChattState Kimball site. Listen to the author read from her various works and come prepared with questions and to have your books signed. This in-person event is free to the public, but registration is required. (Registration will open on April 1.)
LORRIE MOORE
The 2025 Writers@Work featured writer is award-winning author Lorrie Moore. Moore is the author of four short story collections (Self- Help, Like Life, Birds of America, and Bark), four novels (Anagrams, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, A Gate at the Stairs, and I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home), and a children’s book, The Forgotten Helper. See What Can Be Done is a collection of her reviews and essays. Moore has won the O. Henry Award, The Irish Times International Fiction Prize, the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction, and the Finn Zinklar Award for the Short Story given by the Karen Blixen Society in Copenhagen. She has been a finalist for the Orange Prize, The PEN Faulkner Award, The National Book Critics' Circle Award, The Story Prize, and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. A recipient of an NEA, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Fellowship, the Berlin Prize, and a Pushcart Prize, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006, where she is a member of the Board of Directors. Moore currently serves as the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English.
Thank you for your continued support of the ChattState Humanities Department's Writers@Work program.
History of Writers@Work
In 2011, the Chattanooga State Community College Humanities Department founded Writers@Work (W@W) to enhance the practice of literary analysis in its Composition II classes through the reading of a common novel with a focus on Southern culture and people. It quickly transformed into an annual arts experience that touches the lives of countless people in the greater Chattanooga area.
W@W chooses Southern authors whose works center on life in this region, giving participants a new understanding and appreciation for the culture and arts offered in the South, in their own city, and through the community college that serves it. In a media-driven world that shows a limited, and often stereotyped, view of the South, W@W actively works to showcase and celebrate the diversity and rich culture of the Southern people.
Since its beginnings, W@W has expanded to provide more opportunities for public interaction with visiting authors through dynamic events that are always free to attendees. These events take place in various spotlight locations across the city such as the Chattanooga Aquarium, Bessie Smith Cultural Center, and the Hunter Museum of American Art, where the community can interact with the authors in settings that highlight the best of Chattanooga.
Over the last thirteen years, W@W has showcased the following authors and their works:
2012 - Terry Kay’s To Dance With the White Dog
2013 - Ishmael Reed’s New and Collected Poems
2014 - Jill McCorkle’s Creatures of Habit
2015 - Rick Bragg’s All Over But the Shoutin’ and Lila Quintero Weaver’s Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White
2016 - Ron Rash’s Serena and selected poems from Robert Morgan
2017 - Tayari Jones's Silver Sparrow
2018 - George Singleton’s The Half-Mammals of Dixie
2019 - Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly’s The Tilted World
2020 - Daniel Wallace’s Big Fish
2021 - Jericho Brown’s The Tradition
2022 - Karen Russell’s Orange World and Other Stories
2023 - Ariel Francisco’s A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship
2024 - Harrison Scott Key
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Please enjoy the slideshow below of all thirteen
author-signed Writers@Work commemorative posters.
