History is getting closer every day. For purposes of this column, I’m counting 2005 as historic. Otherwise, it’s merely yesterday. Maybe I’m shoehorning Elizabeth Gilbert into Women’s History Month, even though she’s younger than me, but regardless, she made history in Knoxville. She did. It even says so on her Wikipedia page. 
Most women and quite a few men are familiar with Gilbert’s seminal book, Eat, Pray, Love (2006) — a memoir that recounts her post-divorce journey through Italy (eating), India (praying) and Indonesia (loving again). It captured the zeitgeist of the day and became a blockbuster, selling more than 12 million copies and was translated into 30+ languages. To gild the lily, Julia Roberts played Gilbert in the movie version.
But what does that have to do with Knoxville?
Before she launched her international quest to regain her sense of self, she had moderate success with writing and journalism. Her article in GQ, The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon, was the basis for the popular 2000 film Coyote Ugly starring Melanie Lynnsky and John Goodman among others. But Gilbert wasn’t yet a household name, and she probably wasn’t recognized in Starbucks or airports. In fact, following her travels, she was looking for a place to land to write her memoir.
That’s when her friend and fellow writer, Michael Knight, issued an invitation to become the Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence for the creative writing program he directed at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She agreed and rented a rather shabby room in the then-named St. Oliver Hotel on Market Square. This was in the spring of 2005 when the Square had more empty storefronts than not, and downtown was barely alive after 5 p.m. She loved it. She and her new Brazilian partner took to downtown Knoxville’s scruffy scene. Chapman Highway held a particular fascination for them. There, on Market Square, she finalized her manuscript that became the blockbuster we know today.
Knox County Public Library invited Gilbert back to Knoxville on November 2, 2013, to speak at the Tennessee Theatre. “I look back on Knoxville so fondly because it was this pause in the music,” Gilbert said. “There was this adventure that I had just finished and an adventure that was about to come, and I had no way to anticipate the tsunami of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ that was going to hit in a few months.”
If you haven’t read Eat, Pray, Love or her other books, the Library has plenty of copies. Happy Women’s History Month.
Mary Pom Claiborne is assistant director for marketing, communications and development for Knox County Public Library.
