The Virginia Festival of the Book has announced its 2022 schedule of in-person and virtual events.
The Festival takes place March 16-20, and includes more than 80 free, public events now available to explore at VaBook.org/schedule.
“We are thrilled to announce the authors and books we will feature in the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book and invite everyone to participate in March,” Festival director Jane Kulow said. “Each of these events allows you to hear directly from the author, and, whether you experience that event in a local venue or from your own location, that exchange can enhance our understanding of a complicated topic, introduce us to new authors, and allow us to be reminded anew of how stories connect us.”
The full schedule of 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book events is available at VaBook.org/schedule.
All virtual events and the majority of in-person events are free to attend and open to the public.
Festival COVID protocols for in-person events are available at VaBook.org/policies.
Highlights include
- The return of the popular Virginia Writing & Publishing programming track, a pre-Festival offering beginning March 9, featuring virtual events for writers interested in getting published, presented in partnership with literary organizations across the Commonwealth.
- A series of free virtual school events with authors, reaching K-12 students across the state.
- Panel discussions highlighting new work across genres and for all ages.
JMRL Same Page Community Read: We Are Not Free with Traci Chee
Thursday, March 17, 7 p.m. ET, CODE Building, Charlottesville
Traci Chee (We Are Not Free) discusses her acclaimed novel for young readers, the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II. In conversation with local children’s author, Amy Lee-Tai. FREE TO ATTEND AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Presented in partnership with the JMRL Same Page Community Read.
Sponsored by Dominion Energy and Friends of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library
Crime Wave: Secrets, Sisters, and Spies
Friday, March 18, 7 p.m. ET, Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Charlottesville
Join authors Kellye Garrett (Like a Sister), Naomi Hirahara (Clark and Division), and Alma Katsu (Red Widow), as they share their highly-acclaimed, new mysteries offering keen explorations of sisterhood, both biological and chosen. Each novel reveals different facets of American culture as the heroines work to solve inexplicable deaths and long-hidden secrets. Moderated by Ellen Crosby.
Free and open to the public.
NBF Presents: An Afternoon with the National Book Awards
Saturday, March 19, 4 p.m. ET, Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Charlottesville
2021 National Book Award–honored authors Robert Jones, Jr. (The Prophets, Finalist, Fiction), Amber McBride (Me (Moth), Finalist, Young People’s Literature), and Jason Mott (Hell of a Book, Winner, Fiction) join us for a conversation on ancestors, ghosts, and community. Moderated by Hannah Oliver Depp.
Free and open to the public.
Presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation.
Southern Landscapes: Real and Imagined
Saturday, March 19, 7 p.m. ET, The Paramount Theater, Charlottesville—TICKETS REQUIRED
Authors Ralph Eubanks (A Place Like Mississippi), Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (My Monticello), and Imani Perry (South to America) take center stage at this Festival headliner event to discuss the storied fact and fiction of the American South. The famed storytellers of Mississippi, short stories of the near future in central Virginia, and an historian’s travelogue of the southern states together provide a multigenre exploration of the region and what it means to belong to this place. Moderated by Justin G. Reid.
Tickets are $25 general admission ($12 for students) and may be purchased at TheParamount.net.
Poetry for Today: Readings by Victoria Chang and Rita Dove
Sunday, March 20, 3 p.m. ET, Jefferson School African American Heritage Center, Charlottesville
In partnership with the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards (AWBA) and as the closing event for the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book, we present poets Victoria Chang (Obit) and Rita Dove (Playlist for the Apocalypse) as they read from and discuss their recent collections. Chang received the 2021 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Obit, and Dove is a long-time juror for the AWBA, which was established in 1935 and is the only juried American book prize focusing on works that address racism and diversity. Moderated by Karen Long.
Free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
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