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News The Fly-By

Week That Was: Virus Ride, Police Reform, and Nathan Bedford Forrest

Virus Ride
Shelby County’s virus numbers started low and rose steadily throughout the week.

Last Sunday’s total new cases were crazy low with only 19 new cases reported that day, for a total positive rate of 2.9 percent. Monday’s cases put the county over 6,000 total cases at 6,119 and a positive rate of 6.6 percent. Positive rates by Wednesday jumped to 9 percent.

Thursday’s positive rate spiked to 13 percent, and a record number of virus patients were being treated in area hospitals. Friday and Saturday totals found virus rates stabilized to around 7 percent but rose again on Sunday to 9 percent.

Curfew Lifted
In maybe the briefest of news briefs of all time, the city of Memphis announced Monday morning (June 8th) that … well, you can read it up there, but “Memphis curfew has been lifted.”

The lift came after nearly a week of curfew issued from Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to stem protests here after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Poor People’s Campaign Against Racism
A couple dozen people gathered in Downtown Memphis last Monday to rally for justice and an end to systemic racism.

The demonstration, organized by the Poor People’s Campaign, took place in Army Park, where a historical marker stands commemorating the Memphis Massacre of 1866. The massacre lasted three days, over which a white mob led by law enforcement killed approximately 46 black people, raped several black women, and burned churches, schools, and other black establishments.

After reading the words from the historical marker, Rev. Edith Love with the Poor People’s Campaign said violence by white people toward black people has not stopped, but that “it has merely evolved.”

Braking on Back to Business
Shelby County and its cities should not open more economic and social activities until at least June 15th, the Shelby County Health Department said last week.

On Monday afternoon, the health department issued its recommendation on moving into Phase III of the county’s Back to Business plan. Health officials here delayed moving to the next step last week. Also, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland pushed the city’s move to Phase III to Tuesday, June 16th.

“The recommendation comes after careful analysis of data since the move to Phase II on May 19th, 2020,” reads a statement from the health department. “We have seen an increase in daily case numbers, particularly after the Memorial Day weekend. For that reason, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and the Shelby County Health Department have decided to maintain the current COVID-19 response level at this time.”

Floyd Fund Created
Shelby County Schools (SCS) superintendent Joris Ray and University of Memphis president M. David Rudd committed to the creation of the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship fund as a means of fighting the systemic racism and racial inequality faced by African Americans in education.

The fund will provide college scholarship support for African American Male Academy members, as well as college-readiness preparation. The African American Male Academy is a partnership between SCS and the university, aimed at improving graduation rates throughout Memphis.
Nathan Bedford Forrest Boyhood Home/Facebook

Lawmakers Refuse to Remove Forrest Bust
An all-white House committee voted down two proposals from a black House member to remove the bust of slave trader Nathan Bedford Forrest from the Tennessee State Capitol.

Rep. Rick Staples (D-Knoxville) brought his ideas on removing the bust back to lawmakers after the Tennessee General Assembly broke earlier this year on COVID-19 concerns.

Staples’ original resolution sought to remove the bust of the KKK founder and replace it with two African-American Tennesseans — Anne Davis, who worked to establish Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and William F. Yardley, the first African American to run for governor in Tennessee. Staples broadened his original resolution with an amendment that would have allowed the bust to be of any Tennessean who worked for racial equality in the state.

The all-white House Naming, Designating, and Private Acts Committee debated the proposals for more than an hour. The debate touched on protests around the state focused on racial injustice, removing other busts and statues around the capitol building, and one lawmaker’s concern that Staples’ bill would exclude white lawmakers like her from having a bust in the capitol one day.

Staples said he was not trying to erase history, as many lawmakers have worried about over the hours and hours of debate on this topic. Instead, he said he was trying to celebrate a different figure that “touches us all in a positive way.”

Council Moves on Police Reform
A Memphis City Council committee advanced three items that focus on police reform during an online meeting last week.

One aims to increase the transparency of the complaint process for the Memphis Police Department (MPD).

The council also advanced a joint resolution between the council and the Shelby County Commission requesting that MPD and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department adopt the “8 Can’t Wait” use-of-force reduction policy. The policy was created by Campaign Zero, an anti-police-brutality advocacy group, to be implemented by law enforcement agencies in order to reduce and prevent violent encounters.

The last resolution recommended for approval, sponsored by Michalyn Easter-Thomas, calls for Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to form a community task force to assist in the selection of a new MPD director. Rallings announced last year that he plans to retire in April 2021.

All the resolutions were scheduled for a vote this week.

Strickland Opposes Move to Defund Police
Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said last Wednesday he is against defunding the Memphis Police Department, a suggestion floated by many protesters.

As the national conversation about defunding police departments heats up, Strickland released a statement:

“I’m opposed to defunding our police department,” Strickland said. “Over the last four and a half years, we’ve increased funding to libraries, community centers, made summer camps free, created Manhood University, W.O.W.S, and the Public Service Corps for those who need second chances, and came up with a way to fund universal needs-based pre-K, but we still have more work to do.”
[pullquote-1] County in Virus ‘Marathon Mode’
Shelby County is now in COVID-19 marathon mode and could be for “many months to come, if not a year.”

That was the description of the current situation from Shelby County Health Department director Dr. Alisa Haushalter during Thursday’s update of the Memphis and Shelby County Joint COVID Task Force.

“On the joint task force, we realize we’re in a marathon,” Haushalter said. “For any one of you who have run a marathon, you know you have to plan ahead for the distance, knowing there will be difficult times ahead. We know we will have to make changes along the way to meet the end goal to end COVID-19 in our community.”

“Marathon mode” means many things. Officials will continue to urge citizens to wear masks when they leave home, wash their hands, and social distance for the foreseeable future. Specifically, some of the outdoor testing facilities will be moved indoors to escape the summer heat, according to city of Memphis Chief Operating Officer Doug McGowen.

Despite three days of higher-than-average case numbers last week, Haushalter said the community was ready to enter Phase III of the Back to Business Plan, which would open capacity at more stores and restaurants and allow for more social mingling. Some of the highest new case numbers came last week, with 125 cases reported for Wednesday and 129 cases reported for Monday. Haushalter said the county has averaged 65 new cases since the pandemic began here and any number over 100 is a “significant” increase from day to day. However, she said the county has only had six days over 100 new cases in the duration.

“Now, we are seeing a slight increase after we headed into Phase II but not anything that alarms me or anything that says we shouldn’t or couldn’t move into Phase III,” she said.

Corrections Inmates, Employees Virus Tested
Surge testing of 700 inmates and 120 employees at Shelby County Division of Corrections facilities found six inmates and 13 employees who were positive for COVID-19.

The figures put the positivity rate among inmates at about .8 percent. The positive rate for employees, though, is about 10.8 percent.

Results of the testing were shared Friday morning by Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.

No deaths were reported among inmates or employees. No inmates have been hospitalized, though none of them have yet recovered from the virus. Only one of the employees has not yet recovered.

Memphis Gets Bike Friendly
Memphis has shown a strong commitment to improving its bike network and encouraging residents to ride, according to a report released last week.

PeopleForBikes evaluated 550 U.S. and Canadian cities for the report. Memphis ranked 60th overall with a score of 2.5 out of 5.

However, in the acceleration category Memphis snagged fifth place. The acceleration score assesses how quickly a city is improving its biking infrastructure and how successful it is at encouraging residents to ride bikes. Memphis scored 4.2 in this category.

For fuller versions of these stories and more local news, visit The News Blog at memphisflyer.com.

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Flight, Porch & Parlor, and Getting Tanked at Kroger

MEMernet: Flight, Porch & Parlor, and Getting Tanked at Kroger (4)

Taking Flight
Digital stories spilled out into the streets of Memphis as protesters bullhorned and blocked streets near Flight Restaurant and Wine Bar and Porch & Parlor after a barrage of allegations were made online against the restaurants and their owners.

Facebook posts surfaced last week with allegations that Flight managers had instructed workers to seat African-American diners in an upstairs dining room so they would not be seen from the street in the downstairs dining room. The posts caught fire and soon were blazing on other social channels like Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit.

MEMernet: Flight, Porch & Parlor, and Getting Tanked at Kroger (2)

On Saturday morning, Flight issued a statement on Facebook addressing the posts, saying that “we are committed to determine their validity.”

“We take all allegations of discriminatory behavior seriously and refuse to tolerate this type of behavior at our restaurant. To the extent that we learn that any of these accusations are true, these employees will be terminated immediately.”

Flight and Porch & Parlor are owned by the same company. Criticism and allegations of both were proliferating all over the Memphis internet over the weekend.

MEMernet: Flight, Porch & Parlor, and Getting Tanked at Kroger

Protesters with bullhorns massed outside Flight Saturday evening. On Saturday, protesters taunted diners at Porch & Parlor and blocked the intersection of Cooper and Madison. On Sunday, protesters planned another protest, and a Facebook post noted that “Russ [Graham, co-owner of the restaurants], we want answers and we want them now!”

Back again tonight! from r/memphis

MEMernet: Flight, Porch & Parlor, and Getting Tanked at Kroger (3)


Getting Tanked

We’re still searching for answers to this very good question posted to Facebook by Johnathan Lifsey from the Germantown Kroger store.

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Cover Feature News

The Summer Reading Issue: The Bluff City Book Club

There has never been a better time for some summer reading. It’s hot, it’s allergy season, and we still have the coronavirus to contend with. Might as well curl up inside with a good book. Though some things are open (sort of), it looks like people will need to social distance for a while longer. So in honor of the Flyer’s “Summer Reading” issue and to help awaken your appetite for some of Memphis’ luscious local literature, I spoke with three Bluff City authors about their new releases, the long journey from initial idea to bound book, and publishing in a pandemic. Welcome to the Bluff City Book Club.

Sheree Renée Thomas

Sheree Renée Thomas
Memphis author, poet, and editor Sheree Renée Thomas released Nine Bar Blues, a new collection of short stories, last month via Jack White’s Nashville-based Third Man Books, the literary arm of the Raconteurs and the White Stripes rocker’s Third Man Records label. Thomas is the author of Shotgun Lullabies: Poems & Stories and the editor of the critically acclaimed collections Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones. She was also a recipient of a 2017 Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

The author’s newest collection is musical and Memphis to the max, but with a months-long global pandemic and what is now the third week of global protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, Nine Bar Blues enters a world that looks increasingly like the speculative landscapes inside it. And where the nation’s attention is not exactly focused on new releases.

“The original date was back in April, but the pandemic snuck up on us,” Thomas says of Nine Bar Blues’ release date. “We decided we would be hopeful and push it back and hope that things are a little better.” The author had to postpone, reschedule, or cancel appearances on a book tour with stops at Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival, a conversation in New York with Saul Williams, and the punk venue Country Club in London. Not to mention, of course, the Memphis events. “Not quite a Stephen King tour or J.K. Rowling, but it was exciting to me,” Thomas laughs. Locally, the author says she was looking forward to an event at the Central Station Hotel. “We were gonna do something at the train station that I was looking forward to, because, before the pandemic, that was my little hangout. It would be cool to be around all the music.”

But Thomas hasn’t let the timing get her down. “Listen, I was gonna see Journey this summer, so it’s not just me,” she muses. “It’s been a big sea change for the book publishing [industry], but I can just imagine for musicians where playing in person is just part of the magic.”

Music in the Mix
Music is part of the magic of Nine Bar Blues. It informs the title, the prose in its lyricism, and it acts as a recurring motif that ties the collection together. The pages practically snap, crackle, and pop with the sounds of the South, from country to blues to gospel to funk. And it’s in the author’s embrace of multiple genres and modes of storytelling that she stands out as a keen observer of the multihued mosaic that makes up Memphis’ culture.

“I didn’t set out initially to write a book where each story has some exploration of a genre, but I realized that that was what I was doing. And for me music is such a big part of my everyday world. I was born into a family that truly, truly loves music,” Thomas says. “I think my first memory is probably hearing, if not Led Zeppelin, then hearing Parliament Funk in the house.”

About “Head Static,” one of Nine Bar Blues’ stories in which the musical motif is most readily apparent, Thomas says, “I was thinking about what it might be like if your very existence depended on the ability to experience new music. … That constant innovation that humans have in expressing themselves through rhythm and tone.” Laughingly describing finding a world-saving song like some hidden treasure out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, she adds, “I also wanted to play on the quest story.”

“Claire had spent decades foraging through black vinyl, seeking black gold, the sound, the taste of freedom,” Thomas writes in “Head Static.” For Clair, the protagonist of “Head Static,” music is a sword and a shield, a way to connect and a path to forgetting. She and Animus drive through deserts and rain, crossing borders in search of underwater pyramids and ancient melodies of the future.



It’s not all music in Nine Bar Blues, though — or at least, not all the collection’s music is for celebrating. In “The Dragon Can’t Dance,” a dancing dragon from Crown Heights lives chained in a crystal computerized cave, the unknown creator and choreographer behind the superstar Isis. In “Nightflight,” the sun refuses to rise in Memphis. There are poisoned waters and protests alongside the Parliament records. 

Writing on the Borders of the New Weird South
The eclecticism of Nine Bar Blues makes it refreshing when compared with national depictions of the South. (Remember that ridiculous and short-lived Memphis Beat show where Jason Lee played a cop whose side hustle was as an Elvis impersonator? Yeah.) Thomas’ genius is in tapping into the already existing strangeness.

“I like to say that I’m writing on the borders of the New Weird South,” she explains, “which is connected to the bridge to the Old.”

“So many wonderful, truly iconic American contributions have come out [of Memphis and the South] that couldn’t have come from anywhere else. It’s just this strange alchemy of our dark and bright wondrous history and the way we have related to the geography here. Just the music in our language that comes from all of the different cultures that tried to carve out a living out of the land here,” Thomas says. “It’s not a static thing, what we do here. It’s always changing and moving.”

Thomas explains that the New Weird South is a body of work that is interstitial, combining speculative fiction with a Southern Gothic feel in order to better represent the changing cultural landscape. It’s a subset of the New South, a literary movement away from the old “moonlight and magnolias and sticky, sultry, summer nights” clichés. Instead, in embracing the full spectrum of the Southern experience, the movement explores a more authentic, wilder, and weirder landscape.
[pullquote-3] “You hear echoes, some of our greatest hits, of course, Faulkner, Walker,” Thomas says. She notes that stories in the New Weird South mode are not necessarily linear, sometimes approaching their truth in a series of concentric circles.

“It takes us in a space that is not rooted in the traditional modes of storytelling. There’s more space for strangeness,” Thomas continues. “It’s almost like a Southern magical realism, or the marvelous real.”

A Lifetime Reader
Along with references to P-Funk and magical realism, Thomas mentions a multitude of writers and books in our conversation. “I have always been a reader. My mom taught me to read early,” Thomas says. Her father was in the Air Force, so the family traveled often, before resettling in Memphis when Thomas was 7 years old. Reading was a way to make sure a young Sheree would be caught up wherever they landed next — and to ensure she had easy access to entertainment to keep her occupied. “The house was full of books,” she remembers. Her grandparents were great storytellers, too. “They were always sharing these amazing stories from their lives, which seemed like foreign lands to me because they were so different,” Thomas says. “I learned about these different things. I learned about tent city when they were trying to vote and got kicked off the land.”

“My parents were big science-fiction fans,” Thomas recalls. “I found my way to Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.” Thomas particularly liked the Bradbury stories set in small towns, with the mythical hidden everywhere between a thin veneer of the mundane. That and Bradbury’s poetic prose surely influenced the speculative fiction Thomas would go on to one day collect in magazines and write herself.

“I remember the very first time they let me get a library card. It was at the Hollywood branch of the library,” Thomas says. “They would hand me science-fiction stuff because they knew I liked the scary stuff, the strange stuff.” Formative time spent at an Air Force base in White Sands, New Mexico, driving past replicas of rockets and surrounded by snow-white sands that Thomas describes as looking like an “alien landscape” must have made sci-fi more appealing — and lent credence to the idea that the marvelous and the mundane are separated by only the thinnest of barriers.

In high school and college, Thomas attempted to turn her studies toward more practical career paths — even considering chemistry. “The lab cured me of that,” the author laughs. But an encouraging creative nonfiction professor and a stint working at an independent bookstore helped push her to follow her passions. “At the time I had like 15 jobs,” she explains. “I was Valedictorian in high school, but I was also one of the few young women who was already a mom.” One of those jobs was at Gallery 250, a bookstore and art gallery on S. Main. “Which was like heaven because I was surrounded by books and art.”

There Thomas met fellow writer Jamey Hatley, a coworker who came into work with an issue of Black Enterprise magazine that focused on women publishers. For Thomas, it was eye-opening. So, she says, “I made a plan. I was like, ‘I’m going to New York.’”

While in New York, she worked at Forbidden Planet, a sci-fi bookstore across from the Strand. “I did that and every job you could think of when it comes to writing in a book publishing house.” She wrote jacket copy, drafts of sales copy, reviewed books, and did proofreading and copy-editing. She was totally immersed in a world of words.

After the Blues
Now, though, Thomas is back in the Bluff City. “I’m back home, and I don’t think I would have written quite the same collection if I wasn’t home,” she says, suggesting that her roots in Memphis and her time away — both as a child and working in New York — gave her perspective on her hometown.

As for what’s next after Nine Bar Blues, Thomas is currently doing some story consulting for a video game project. And she’s considering adapting a feature-length screenplay she wrote in New York to set it in Memphis. “I wrote it before the horror renaissance with Jordan Peele and Get Out. Of course, we didn’t call ’em social thrillers then. We were calling ’em horror movies,” Thomas laughs. The film, as she explains it, would be a horror movie disguised as a romance dealing with history and burial grounds. It was originally set at the African burial grounds at Wall Street, what Thomas calls slavery’s cemetery. “They built Wall Street literally on the bones of these people.”

Whatever is next for Thomas, whether it’s Jordan Peele-level horror film or another genre-spanning collection of funkadelic speculative stories, readers can safely expect a wild, weird, and wondrous ride.

Kristy Dallas Alley

Richard J. Alley

Kristy Dallas Alley and Richard J. Alley
“We met in high school. It was 1987,” says Richard Alley, author of Five Night Stand and the new novel of historical fiction, Amelia Thorn (Beacon Publishing Group), and husband to Kristy Dallas Alley, author of the forthcoming The Ballad of Ami Miles (Swoon Reads).

The literary power couple met in drama class at Kirby High School, making the arts a feature of their relationship from the beginning.

“I’ve always been a really big reader. I think I peer-pressured him into being more of a reader,” Kristy says, laughing. (The two laugh often as we conduct our interview over the phone.) Richard admits that he read more often “as a kid” and then grew out and back into it. But, about Kristy, he says, “From the day I met her she was always reading.”

“In middle school, there was a period where I was reading a book a day, kind of to the exclusion of all else,” Kristy remembers. “I wouldn’t really do my schoolwork, so I was grounded all the time. Then when I was grounded I couldn’t leave my bedroom so I would read just constantly.”

The Writing Life
Kristy works as a high school librarian, which has helped to keep her finger on the pulse of what’s popular in Young Adult fiction (or YA, as it’s called in the publishing industry). It’s both a help and a hindrance, she explains. “YA is a very different kind of publishing space than adult literature. So in some ways it’s helped me to stay immersed in that world, and in some ways it can be intimidating. It can be hard to push past the idea and the pressure of what is selling in the market in YA right now,” she says. It’s about striking a balance between what’s marketable in a genre that turns more quickly than most to chase hot trends, and writing the story she wants to write. “Is there a way to make those two things meet in the middle?”

“There’s a lot of skill and talent needed for writing, but there’s also a whole lot of luck when it comes to getting published,” Richard chimes in.
[pullquote-4] “In YA, there are a lot of things focused around your debut year, and you’re in a debut group,” Kristy explains. “I’m in a debut group with a lot of young writers who are really shooting for the moon. They want to be able to make a career out of it and quit their day job, and you see a lot of sort of crashed dreams by the end of a debut year,” she says, admitting that for her it is more about seeing the story she’s held in her head fully realized in the real world. “In reality, very few writers are going to become that rock star household name,” Kristy says.

In the end, what it all comes down to is this, Kristy sums up: “Am I trying to sell a book or am I trying to tell a story? If I were only trying to sell a book, I would think the pressure would be overwhelming.”

In a career path littered with the rejected manuscripts of would-be writers, Richard says the thing itself has to be its own reward. “You have to love the process. You just have to love writing.

“It does help to have someone who has done it as your partner because then they understand,” Richard admits. Not only is one’s partner more understanding if they have also traveled the writer’s road, they can help with plotting, editing, and untangling tricky passages. It’s a busy life, balancing four children, two careers, multiple manuscripts, but being able to bounce ideas off each other helps.

Richard and Kristy have discussed their fictional worlds on long car trips, on walks, and at the dinner table. “He holds his stuff a little closer to the chest for longer until he’s sort of in it and knows that it’s gonna take,” Kristy says.

Kristy says that adds another layer to the relationship, one they had to learn to navigate. “I’m such an English teacher and an editor. He learned to tell me, ‘Right now, I just want you to tell me if it’s good or bad.’”

“Mainly I just want her to tell me that it’s good,” Richard says, laughing. Kristy continues: “At some point I’ll proofread the manuscript. I’m the grammarian. I mean, he’s not terrible at grammar, but I know all the little nit-picky rules you wouldn’t know unless you taught seventh grade English.”

“That’s the level I write at — seventh grade,” Richard interjects.

“You gotta get down in there with the red pen sometimes,” Kristy adds, laughing too.

Amelia Thorn
“This is my second published novel, but it’s actually the fourth manuscript I’ve written,” Richard says of his newest release. “And I look back, and I have no idea how that happened.”

“I know how,” Kristy chimes in. “Richard is a much more disciplined writer than I am. When he gets an idea and he’s in the grips of a story, he’ll make time.”

Richard, who has written for his own blog, The Commercial Appeal, and Memphis magazine, says that part of that discipline means he tries to make his day job work for him. “For me the journalism I wrote always helped inform the fiction,” He explains. “When I was writing Five Night Stand, I wanted to learn more about jazz, especially in this region, in this city. So I pitched a story to Memphis magazine about the history of jazz in Memphis, which was nice because I got to do research and get paid for it and work it all out in my head and on paper.”

“The same thing with Amelia Thorn,” he continues. “As I was in the process of writing it, I started a series [about local photographers] for Memphis magazine called ‘Mind’s Eye’ where I got to talk to these great photographers all over town and really pick their brains and see what was behind the lens. So in that respect I use one to help the other.”

As readers may have guessed, Amelia Thorn’s eponymous protagonist is a photographer. She’s being interviewed on the eve of a retrospective of her life’s work, and the interview (an unobtrusive and clever framing device) leads her through her journey from Mississippi to Memphis and through hardship to a career as a celebrated photographer.

“I started late 2013, early 2014, and I got to about 40,000 words, which is about halfway through. And I had heaped all this tragedy on Amelia and I didn’t know where to go with her,” Richard remembers. “At that point, too, Five Night Stand was picked up, so I had to edit that. And I had another idea for a book, so I actually put Amelia Thorn down and wrote another manuscript, which is not published. But I started and finished that one. And then in November 2016, there’s the presidential election. And then what rose out of that and watching Kristy and my daughters and watching women all around the country and the world and friends of ours and their daughters, how they resisted and persisted and they fought back and became so vocal. And it was just so surprising.”

In the summer of 2018, while a resident at Crosstown and with the repercussions of the 2016 election still swirling around in his head, Richard finished Amelia Thorn. “My plan was to fully edit the other manuscript I had written, but I ended up picking Amelia Thorn up, and I realized then that she was not the victim I was making her out to be,” Richard says. “What was going to happen in the next 40,000 words was she was going to become stronger and more independent and hopefully someone to look up to.”
[pullquote-1] Richard says he just couldn’t let Amelia languish any longer. “The characters are alive to me,” he says. “I felt terrible leaving her in that state. Leaving her unfinished and with all this shit I dumped on her. I felt like I had to get her out of that.”

The Ballad of Ami Miles
While Richard’s newest novel is a more traditional literary Southern novel, Kristy’s is a dystopian YA bildungsroman (or coming of age tale). Think Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men but Southern and written for teens.

In The Ballad of Ami Miles, America has been laid low by the scourge of infertility. The infertility was caused by a virus, and there was some immunity to it, meaning that children are still-born, albeit rarely. Ami’s mother (who has been missing for years) and aunts were able to conceive. “[Ami’s aunt] reveals to Ami that she knows where her mother might be, and her and the aunt and uncle conspire to help Ami to run away in search of her mother,” Kristy explains. At the time she leaves, Ami thinks it will be a simpler thing to find her mother. Of course, that would be an awfully short story.
[pullquote-2] “When Ami gets around people her own age for the first time, she actually falls for a girl,” Kristy says. “She didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. So she has to face a big decision between does she have an obligation to her family to do what they have trained her and raised her to believe is her destiny, or does she have a right to choose a different kind of life than she ever imagined she could have.”

“Until I ran, I was always the smallest person in my world, and what I knew about the outside of myself was no more than could fit in the palm of my hand,” Kristy writes in The Ballad of Ami Miles. The author says one review called Ami Miles “positive post-apocalyptic fiction,” a summing-up that she could approve of.

“I used to like the hopefulness of it,” Kristy says of the apocalyptic fiction genre. “It became this big thing after The Hunger Games.” She says she appreciated the aspect of characters living a life that is nothing like what we see as normal but somehow persevering. Now, in the post-Hunger Games world (and a world that seems to look increasingly like the dystopian landscape of that series), novels in that vein tend to focus more on the systems of control than on the characters who inhabit them.

The idea for The Ballad of Ami Miles, though, is rooted in character. Driving to Panama City Beach for vacation, the Alleys would pass an abandoned trailer dealership between Birmingham and Jasper, Alabama. The scene looked so desolate, Kristy couldn’t help seeing it as some post-apocalyptic landscape — and wondering who might be hardy enough to make a life there.

“It was always a highlight of the trip because I’d be driving and we’d pass through there and then I’d get to hear about it for the next 100 miles,” Richard says.

Because of the pandemic, The Ballad of Ami Miles, originally slated to be released this spring, has now been postponed and is set to be published on December 1st. Signed copies are available to preorder from Burke’s Book Store.

Epilogue
“We’ve got a big family,” Richard says. “It’s Kristy and me and our four kids and Ami Miles and Amelia Thorn and Oliver Pleasant and Frank Severs. We all inhabit this house and our lives.”

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Four Memphis Arts Organizations Receive NEA Grants

It’s a tough time for the arts. With performance venues shuttered by COVID-19 and the associated economic downturn hurting donations, arts nonprofits are struggling to make ends meet. Four Memphis arts organizations got some welcome relief this week when they learned they have been selected to receive grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

All four grants were awarded through the Art Works program. The New Ballet Ensemble was selected for a $40,000 Arts Education grant. Opera Memphis will receive a $25,000 grant. In the theater category, Hattiloo Theatre was chosen for a $25,000 grant. And Indie Memphis will receive its first-ever NEA Media Arts grant worth $20,000.

In total, 18 grants worth $1.2 million will go to arts organizations in Tennessee. The largest is the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, which is slated for a $75,000 Our Town grant for design. The Dogwood Arts Festival and the Big Ears experimental music festival in Knoxville were also chosen. Among the 10 organizations in Nashville chosen for grants are the Nashville Children’s Theatre, the Nashville Symphony, and Vanderbilt University. By far the largest grant this funding cycle went to the Tennessee Arts Commission, which received $846,100 as part of the State and Regional Partnerships program.

In all, more than $84 million in competitive grants were awarded across all U.S. states and territories. The NEA is also supplying technical support for these organizations to help them adapt their programming to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus.

 

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News News Blog

A Note From Our CEO: We’ll Be Closed on Juneteenth. Here’s Why.

Much of the work needed to heal centuries of racist harm will take time. Finding our way to a more whole, more equitable future will take time, and contemplation, and strategy, and heart, and anger, and listening, and love, and all the determination and courage we as a community can muster.

Within this long journey, though, there are moments of simplicity.

One such moment of simplicity: This Friday, June 19th, is Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger informed enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War had ended and that they were free. More than two-and-a-half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it finally took effect.

Starting this Friday, and every June 19th thereafter, Contemporary Media Inc. will mark Juneteenth as a holiday, in recognition of freedom, joy, and Black lives.

In a year that has felt often crushingly complex, it’s helpful to be reminded that sometimes progress looks like merely choosing to make the immediate changes we can, while keeping sight of farther-reaching goals.

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Health Department Brakes on Phase III

The new Bishop restaurant inside Central Station Hotel

Shelby County will not move into the next phase of reopening the economy here on concerns of rising cases, transmission rates, hospitalizations, and reduced public health resources.

The announcement from Shelby County Health Department officials came Monday afternoon, the day Phase III — the next phase of the county’s Back to Business Plan — was to go into effect. No date was given Monday for when the county might be able to move into the next phase.

Health department director Dr. Alisa Haushalter said decisions to move into the new phases are based on four criteria: trends of new cases, testing, hospital capacity and hospitalizations, and public health capacity.

Sunday marked the most new cases of COVID-19 reported here in a single day over the previous 100 days since the virus response began. The figure is part of a trend, one that was expected after a loosening of rules and the Memorial Day weekend holiday. While case numbers did rise, Haushalter and others considered maybe the county was in a “new normal but we are not.”

“We are seeing significant transmission within the community and if we moved forward [into Phase III] we would have been more at risk,” she said.

Also, health department officials got a sense of concern from leaders at local hospitals during a regular Sunday call about what they’re seeing in their facilities. Early hospitalizations found clusters of patients from area nursing homes. However, new hospitalizations “now represent our community more broadly.”

While the health department is on-boarding more staff to help with investigations and contact tracing, Haushalter said current staff levels are not adequate. Typically, the ability to do contact tracing of new patients is around 80 percent, she said, but that number has dipped over the past few weeks.

Testing capacity is another criteria officials look at to decide to move into a new phase. However, Haushalter said Shelby County has plenty of capacity and that it’s “underutilized.”

In Phase III, restaurants, stores, and some other facilities could have allowed up to 75 percent customer capacity. Gathering could have included more than 50 people. Festivals and parades may have been allowed. None of that is allowed in Phase II, though.

Even as cases spiked last week, Haushalter maintained the county could move into the next, looser phase unless there were unforeseen changes in the data. Rising and unstable figures made prudent the decision to stay in Phase II. Moving ahead now could cause “more damage economically and socially.”

William Kenley, executive vice president for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare’s Community Group said the rising numbers were “cause for concern.” However, he said local healthcare systems are “ready and available in case of a surge” with hospital capacity, personal protective equipment (PPE), and other medical supplies.

Health officials typically announce moves from one phase to another on Mondays. So Monday, June 22nd, would be the first opportunity to know if we’re cleared for Phase III.

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Local Nonprofit Leaders Urge Officials to Address Systemic Racism, Poverty

Brandon Dill

Protesters and police officers face off during the 2016 Hernando de Soto bridge protest

A coalition of local nonprofit leaders wrote an open letter to local officials and business leaders, listing steps to address police issues and poverty in the city.

The letter, signed by more than 100 leaders of nonprofits here, lists eight demands related to police brutality and accountability, as well as five demands for tackling poverty in Memphis.

“We have come together as black leaders of the nonprofit space to amplify the cries and demands heard in our streets and around the country,” the letter reads. “Joined by our non-black colleagues in leadership, we demand more of our city’s leadership. We see the direct impact of racism and oppression daily.”

Specifically, the letter asks the following:

• Release all of the protesters that were arrested and drop all charges; investigate law enforcement brutality and misconduct during the recent protests

• Reallocate funding from the police department to fund alternatives rooted in community health and crisis response

• Ban chokeholds and strangleholds by Memphis and Shelby County law enforcement officers

• Require de-escalation as a first response by Memphis and Shelby County law enforcement officers

• Develop a duty to intervene when an officer witnesses another officer using excessive force

• Require reporting by officers any time they point a firearm at a citizen

• Give the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) the power to investigate and ensure accountability for police conduct and provide clear avenues for CLERB’s input on police training, policies, and procedures

• Include grassroots black and brown leaders and activists on the team selecting the next MPD chief

Next, the letter lists five demands to address inequality and poverty, explaining that the systemic issues go beyond policing.

“From education to wages, we have constructed and perpetuated a system that keeps our residents in poverty,” the letter reads. “We call on leadership in all sectors — government, nonprofit, and corporations — to adopt an agenda that addresses these issues. It will require doing businesses differently and centering the lives, dreams, and concerns of all of our residents.”

[pullquote-1]

The specific asks include:

• Combat poverty by tracking companies paying a living wage and having corporations sign on to a living wage pledge and a commitment to give temporary employees health insurance and benefits

• Renew investment in K-12 in the city budget

• End money bail and stop penalties for traffic tickets, court costs, and other fines

• Enact a citizen participatory budgeting process for the city and county that prioritize neighborhood-level investments

• Release a clear plan for more effectively funding the Memphis Area Transit Authority by August

“We believe deeply that the leadership in our city wants a city where all residents are treated with dignity and humanity and are provided opportunities to become thriving citizens,” the letter reads. “For us to get there, we ask the leaders in government and business to respond to these demands with clear commitment to ACTION.”

The letter calls for the recipients to respond with clear action steps by June 26th. Read the full letter and see the list of signees below.

[pdf-1]

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New Patient Count Hits Record High

COVID-19 Memphis
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New Patient Count Hits Record High

The Shelby County Health Department recorded a record-high number of virus-positive patients in a single day Sunday with 256 new cases. Previous record days have seen 190 and 192 new patients.

The county’s positive rate for COVID-19 rose on test results received Sunday after two days of lower, stable rates at about 7 percent.

The health department reported 1,145 tests were given Sunday. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 6,892, up 256 from the previous day. The department reported no new deaths on Sunday. The death toll is now 139 in Shelby County.

Sunday marked the 100th day of the county’s response to the virus. On that day, the number of hospitalizations was 188, according to information obtained by the Memphis Flyer. A source said the figure was “high” but noted it was down from 207 hospitalized patients seen on two days last week. On a few days, there have been as many as 70 in area ICUs.

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Virus Rate Remains Stable After Spike

COVID-19 Memphis
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Virus Rate Remains Stable After Spike

Shelby County’s positive rate for COVID-19 remained steady on test results received Saturday — at about 7 percent.

The Shelby County Health Department reported 1,145 tests were given Saturday. The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 6,636, up 80 from the previous day. The department reported no new deaths on Saturday. The death toll is now 139 in Shelby County.

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Virus Positive Rate Retreats From Upward Trend

COVID-19 Memphis
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Virus Positive Rate Retreats From Upward Trend

Shelby County’s positive rate for COVID-19 fell on test results received Thursday to about 7.2 percent, down from the 13 percent reported Thursday.

The Shelby County Health Department reported 1,562 tests were given Friday, up from the 743 tests given the day before.

The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 6,556, up 113 from the previous day.

The department reported two one new death on Friday. The death toll is now 139 in Shelby County.