April 02, 2004
For Immediate Release
Contact: Kevin McFadden
434-924-6890
kmcfadden@virginia.edu

VABook! 2004 Tops Attendance Record Again

More than 22,000 in Attendance at 200 Free Events

(Charlottesville, VA, April 02, 2004) …The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities is pleased to report that the tenth annual Virginia Festival of the Book (VABook!), held March 24-28 in Charlottesville, was the most successful to date, garnering a total attendance number higher than 22,000 with a few programs still to be officially recorded.

“There was so much excitement and energy during the week,” said VABook! Program Director Nancy Damon. “It was really gratifying to see people out and around talking about books.”

VABook! 2004 featured memorable performances by Garrison Keillor, the Fellowship of Southern Writers, Clyde Edgerton, Kaye Gibbons, Edward P. Jones, David Baldacci, Michael Ondaatje, Michael Chabon, Richard Leider, Antonio Benìtez-Rojo and hundreds more. The festival recorded its highest single program attendance at the Keillor event (with 680 in the audience) and in 2004 school participation was also at a record high.

Also celebrating the festival with good news are the winners of the On-in-Ten Comic Poetry competition. Grand prize winner Bob McKenty of Matawan, NJ, joins eight other winners including Carlos Alcalá of Sacramento, CA; Deborah J. Beyerof Paw Paw, MI; David J. Cyr of East Hartford, CT; Mary Walton D’Angeloof Atlanta, GA; Norbert Hirschhorn of New Haven, CT; Joyce La Mers of Oxnard, CA (with two winning entries); Browning Porter of Charlottesville, VA; and Dr. Laurie Rosenblatt of Cambridge, MA. The ten winning poems will appear with two other comic poems by Virginia poets George Garrett and R.H.W. Dillard in a limited edition chapbook to be made available this fall. Garrett and Dillard were the final judges of the competition.

Winners of the Publishing Day drawing for free submissions to major print-on-demand publishers included Jane Grinnell of Charlottesville, VA (1stBooks, now AuthorHouse); William James, Sr. of Ruckersville, VA (iUniverse); Talula Gunter of Springfield, VA (Infinity Publishing).

The eleventh annual Virginia Festival of the Book, produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, is scheduled for March 16-20, 2005. For more information on VABook!, visit the festival website www.vabook.org.

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