The 2025 Virginia Festival of the Book honors the late Nikki Giovanni with a tribute on Saturday.
Giovanni, 81, a retired Virginia Tech professor of English, died December 9, 2024 after another battle with cancer. She was a long-time board member of the Virginia Humanities, which hosts and organizes the Charlottesville festival.
The festival begins Thursday at 2 p.m. , with activities all day Friday and Saturday and concludes with activities from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 23.
“I think it’s important because Nikki Giovanni was more than just a poet. She transcended poetry,” said Kalela Williams of Staunton, who is director of the Virginia Humanities’ Virginia Center for the Book in Charlottesville.
Giovanni was part of the Black arts movement, a guiding voice for emerging poets and a Black civil rights activist. She was also instrumental in founding the Virginia Humanities’ Rosel Schewel Fund, which develops women who work in the humanities.
Williams met Giovanni in 2010 while making plans to honor a late Virginia author. She said that Giovanni never shied away from sharing her opinion or speaking her mind.
“Whatever was in her mind was always brilliant,” Williams said.
Williams began to think about honoring Giovanni soon after she died and she learned that her bosses were thinking the same.
“She championed anyone who needed their voice amplified,” Williams said of Giovanni. And Giovanni amplified stories, which is what the Virginia Humanities works to do. “I think it’s also crucial that we honor her. We couldn’t not do it.”
Williams said that Saturday’s tribute to Giovanni, for which tickets are already sold out, will be “an artistic event. We’ll have authors reading Nikki Giovanni’s works.” A band will perform live music. “It’s going to be a multi-disciplinary arts event.”
The artistic director of Giovanni’s tribute are both Staunton residents and involved in local theater: Constance Swain, who is also directing “Little Women” at the American Shakespeare Center, and Cait Redman.
However, the vision for the tribute, according to Williams, comes from Giovanni’s long-time friend, Joanne Gabbin.
“She talked to us about all the things that Nikki would want to see at this tribute. So she provided that driving vision,” Williams said of Gabbin. The Virginia Humanities worked with Gabbin and Giovanni’s widow, Virginia “Ginny” Fowler in planning the tribute. “Undoubtedly, wherever she is, [Nikki will appreciate the tribute].”
The 2025 Virginia Festival of the Book will bring 105 authors and more than 65 events to Charlottesville over four days with panel discussions, a kick-off party Thursday night, a Historical Fiction Breakfast and much more.
Williams said she is most excited for “Champagne and Cake” and “Black Fantastical,” which she describes as “a different lens through which to view the world.”
Williams, author of the 2024 novel “Tangleroot,” will host “Untangling the Publishing Process” at 11 a.m. on March 21. She is the first director of the festival to also participate as an author.
On March 22 at 1 p.m. in the Omni Ballroom, Sen. Tim Kaine will discuss his 2024 memoir, “Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside.”
“It’s worth that drive over the mountain,” Williams said for anyone living in Staunton, Augusta County or Waynesboro and thinking about attending festival events.
Tickets are available for events throughout the weekend. Participants are welcome to register for the entire weekend online.
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President Biden sends condolences for Nikki Giovanni
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MBU’s Amy Tillerson-Brown carries on teaching legacy from Nikki Giovanni
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Rebecca Barnabi
