
Virtual School Visit with Ruth Behar
On April 6 as part of the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book, Ruth Behar (Tía Fortuna’s New Home: A Jewish Cuban Journey) discussed her picture book in a presentation …

SELC Reed Environmental Award Celebration with Michael Mann
Michael Mann, author of (The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet) will speak at the annual celebration of the Reed Award for Environmental Writing presented by …

Letter to a Young Female Physician with Dr. Suzanne Koven
It’s 2022. Why haven’t women achieved more equity in medicine, or in other professions? When veteran physician and writer Dr. Suzanne Koven toured the country after the publication of her …

Poetry for Today: Readings by Victoria Chang and Rita Dove
In partnership with the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and as the closing event for the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book, we present poets Victoria Chang (Obit) and Rita Dove (Playlist …

Southern Landscapes: Real and Imagined
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 …

The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: A Conversation with Andrew O’Shaughnessy
Historian Andrew O’Shaughnessy, (The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind) discusses his most recent book, a twin biography of Thomas Jefferson in retirement and of the University of Virginia in …

Preserving and Using Native Plants
Authors Georgann Eubanks (Saving the Wild South), and Kat Maier (Energetic Herbalism) discuss ecological stewardship and resources for medicinal plant uses from many traditions. Much more than guidebooks, these authors …

Transformative Desire: Literary Fiction
Alex DiFrancesco (Transmutation), Lindsay Merbaum (The Gold Persimmon), and Morgan Thomas (Manywhere) discuss their genre-defying fiction, populated by characters who grapple with ideas of identity, desire, free will, transformation, and …

Bodies in Space & Time: Identity in Sci-Fi & Speculative Fiction
Ryka Aoki (Light from Uncommon Stars), Micaiah Johnson (The Space Between Worlds), and Lincoln Michel (The Body Scout) discuss the explorations of race, gender, and identity posed in their science …

NBF Presents: An Afternoon with the National Book Awards
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 …

Thrillers for a Wild Ride
Authors Yasmin Angoe (Her Name is Knight), S.A. Cosby (Razorblade Tears), and Vera Kurian (Never Saw Me Coming) share their highly-acclaimed thrilling tales of two identities, two lost lives, and …

Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: A Conversation with Michael Krepon
Foreign affairs and policy specialist Michael Krepon (Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace), discusses his definitive guide to the history of nuclear arms control, including how the practice was built …

That’s a Wrap!
That’s a wrap on our 29th Annual Virginia Festival of the Book! Thank you SO MUCH to our amazing community that showed up with excitement, curiosity, and an enormous love of reading. It was one for the books… pun intended.