Today we talk with author Steve Haruch. We discuss his wonderful new book—which was published by Vanderbilt Press—called Greetings from New Nashville. Steve edited the Greetings, and two of his essays are featured amount a number of others by some of my very favorite writers in the city. By looking at the time period between 1998 and 2018, it examines how and why the New Nashville we know today—the so-called It City—emerged and it sorts through the impact and implications of that rise. In many ways, it is a question we’ve been asking with every episode, and the lens through which we’ve been trying to look at Nashville history and so to read the take presented by this collection of essays was both refreshing and satisfying. I had a lot of a-ha moments on my journey through it. The book comes out in October, but you can preorder it now.

Steve, I should tell you, is a writer, editor, and filmmaker based in Nashville. His work has appeared in the Nashville Scene, the New York Times, NPR's Code Switch, the Guardian, and elsewhere. He is currently producing a documentary film about the history of college radio.