This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Virginia Festival of the Book. We invite you to celebrate with us at our Wordy Thirty Anniversary Party, where you’ll enjoy food, drinks, dancing, and lively conversation with fellow book lovers.

Schedule

Judaism Disrupted

March 20, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

UVA BOOKSTORE

Rabbi Michael Strassfeld’s Judaism Disrupted re-envisions a Judaism that cultivates inner qualities such as gratitude, patience and generosity, reshaping the tradition into something radically new.

Unsung Women

March 20, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Expand your understanding of three historic women in this inspiring panel with Ruth P. Watson, Virginia Pye, and Stephanie Dray.

Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy’s America in Black and White

March 20, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

In Justice Rising: Robert Kennedy’s America in Black and White, Patricia Sullivan examines Kennedy’s story with the Black freedom struggles of the 1960s.

Holocaust Reckonings

March 20, 2024 3:30PM – 5PM

UVA BOOKSTORE

For scholar and author Susan Rubin Suleiman, everyday objects from her past hold memories of her childhood as a Holocaust refugee.

Where the Truth Lies: Racism and Reckonings

March 20, 2024 3:30PM – 5PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

What comes about when an ethnographer and storyteller confronts a painful legacy of racism? And what happens when a scholar of white supremacy researches her own family’s troubled history? B.

Heavenly Bodies & Hot Sonnets: Modern Love Poems

March 20, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

In this panel, two Virginia poets develop new language to talk about love and describe modern relationships.

Wild Asana: Animals, Yoga, and Connecting Our Practice to the Natural World

March 21, 2024 11AM – 12:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

TICKETED EVENT

Grab a mat and join author Allison Zak for an interactive yoga workshop and book talk.

Skimpy Coverage

March 21, 2024 11AM – 12:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

Why are female athletes so often seen as spectacle? Skimpy Coverage delves into Sports Illustrated’s treatment of female athletes since the iconic magazine’s founding in 1954. 

Standing Up to Hate: August, 2017

March 21, 2024 11AM – 12:30PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Firsthand accounts of members of the Charlottesville Clergy Collective recalling their experiences in resisting white supremacist violence in Standing Up to Hate: The Charlottesville Clergy Collective and the Lessons from August 12, 2017.

Wake Up to Wonder

March 21, 2024 12PM – 1:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

In her quest to live a vibrant spiritual life, author Karen Wright Marsh had a revelation: she didn’t need to find and follow the perfect plan; she needed people she could follow.

Autonomy and Agency

March 21, 2024 12:30PM – 2PM

OMNI HOTEL

Three storytellers approach womanhood, belonging, and justice in the United States.

Solastalgia: An Anthology of Emotion in a Disappearing World

March 21, 2024 12:30PM – 2PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Three authors will discuss the meaning of climate change in the face of the people and places they love and their vision of what we can create.

Soul in Celebration

March 21, 2024 12:30PM – 2PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Three poets celebrate Black womanhood, weaving joy and elegy together in their verse.

Strange Species: Science Fiction

March 21, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

UVA BOOKSTORE

Two science fiction novels, A Half Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys and Underjungle by James Sturz, create imaginative worlds to probe the state of humanity with fascinating questions.

Lawless Women

March 21, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

Join bestselling authors Heather Webb and Katherine Howe for a lively conversation about two women who redefined their place in the world.

Natural Born Creatures

March 21, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Join authors Erica Howsare and Nicollette L. Cagle for a discussion of three remarkable creatures that dwell in the natural world: deer, snakes, and humans.

Black Women’s Collectives

March 21, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Authors Ethel Morgan Smith and Courtney Thorsson explore how the bonds of Black women shaped America today.

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant

March 21, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

UVA BOOKSTORE

TICKETED EVENT

Join author Curtis Chin as he talks about his memoir about growing up working class, queer, and Chinese American in Detroit in the 1970s and 80s.

Queer Reimaginings with SJ Sindu and Addie Tsai, in Conversation with Henry Hoke

March 21, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

Three authors explore the tradition of queer literary fiction, and how writers are expanding the genre in imaginative and evocative ways.

Tagging Freedom: Reading and Art Workshop

March 21, 2024 4:30PM – 6PM

THE BRIDGE PROGRESSIVE ARTS INITIATIVE

Join the author of this middle-grade book about a Syrian boy who secretly tags messages of freedom around his city.

Dark Imaginations

March 21, 2024 5:30PM – 7PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Across time and genre, four authors explore the dark side of their imaginations.

Finding Your Voice: YA Fiction Pizza Party

March 21, 2024 6:30PM – 8PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Joins novelists Sarah Mughal Rana and Kelly Ann Jacobson for a talk about Hope Ablaze and Robin and Her Misfits, novels with teen characters who learn how to be true to themselves in extraordinary circumstances.

Stories of Meaning: Voices of Adult Learners

March 21, 2024 7PM – 8PM

V. EARL DICKINSON BUILDING, PIEDMONT VA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Adult Learners from around the world will share their meaningful stories and poems about family, work, education and belonging.

SEEK: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life

March 21, 2024 7PM – 8:30PM

ST. ANNE'S-BELFIELD SCHOOL, GREENWAY RISE CAMPUS, GRISHAM HALL

TICKETED EVENT

Discover the superpower of curiosity with Scott Shigeoka, internationally recognized curiosity expert, speaker, and the author of SEEK: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World.

Against Technoableism

March 22, 2024 10AM – 11:30AM

CITYSPACE

In her novel Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement, Ashley Shew examines the often harmful intersection of technology and disability.

The Texture of Family: Black Fiction

March 22, 2024 10:30AM – 12PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Join as authors Jeffrey Blount, Donna Hemans, and Joanna Skerrett discuss their novels that explore the texture of Black families.

The Death of a Public School

March 22, 2024 10:30AM – 12PM

OMNI HOTEL

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Cara Fitzpatrick delivers a history lesson in The Death of Public School, looking back at the turbulent history of school choice.

Family Trees & Legacies

March 22, 2024 11AM – 12:30PM

NEW DOMINION BOOKSHOP

Three poets look back on their lineage, translating its impact with daring, inventive forms.

The Sound of the Future

March 22, 2024 11:30AM – 1PM

CITYSPACE

In The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology, Willowtree CEO Tobias Dengel proposes that voice is the next technology, with profound potential to alter our modern landscape.

Toxic Legacy

March 22, 2024 12PM – 1:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

In 1975, an unexplained but dire illness came to light among workers at a Hopewell, Virginia chemical plant. More investigation revealed that Allied Chemical Corporation had been contaminating the area with pesticides for more than a decade.

Multigenerational Fiction: Ghosts and Secrets

March 22, 2024 12:30PM – 2PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Jimin Han’s The Apology and Denene Millner’s One Blood explore the meaning of legacy across generations.

Southern Fried Crime

March 22, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

CITYSPACE

Two novelists explore the ties that bind and the binds that they can get us into.

Pastoral Pilgrims: Southern Poets in Nature

March 22, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

NEW DOMINION BOOKSHOP

Two southern poets turn to the natural world, finding solace and mystery.

Impossible Choices

March 22, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

Join the authors of We Must Not Think of Ourselves and The Measure of Distance for examinations of some of life’s most impossible choices.

Blue Ridge Thrillers

March 22, 2024 2:30PM – 4PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

Three debut Crime Wave authors find the seamy underbelly lurking below the cool silhouette of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Better Halves: Romcom Heroines Meet Their Matches

March 22, 2024 2:30PM – 4PM

OMNI HOTEL

Two award-winning romance authors explore queer love, hometown ties, and the magic that makes all these relationships work.

Alternate Appalachias

March 22, 2024 2:30PM – 4PM

NEW DOMINION BOOKSHOP

Three memoirists examine their lives in Appalachia, revealing the breadth and diversity of the region.

Scandalous Ladies of the 19th Century

March 22, 2024 3PM – 4:30PM

CITYSPACE

Hear from Besty Prioleau, author of Diamonds and Deadlines and Sarah Horowitz, author of The Red Widow.

The 2024 Carol Troxell Reader: Dwight Garner

March 22, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

NEW DOMINION BOOKSHOP

In his memoir The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading, this beloved New York Times critic dishes up the joys of books and food.

Blue Hour

March 22, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

JEFFERSON SCHOOL AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE CENTER

A Black Japanese woman recovering from the emotional scars of a miscarriage ponders questions of motherhood when a boy in her community becomes a victim of police brutality.

Like a Lady: Women in Crime

March 23, 2024 10AM – 11:30AM

OMNI HOTEL

Three writers investigate women’s various roles in true crime: witnesses, perpetrators, consumers, and survivors.

The New Brownies Book: A Love Letter to Black Families

March 23, 2024 10AM – 11:30AM

OMNI HOTEL

The Brownies Book, a monthly magazine originally published by W.E.B. Dubois and other NAACP leaders in 1920, has been reimagined as The New Brownies Book: A Love Letter to Black Families more than a century later.

Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Book Swap

March 23, 2024 10AM – 12:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Swap your gently used books for something new to you. It’s free, fun, and for all ages!

Fantastical Love: Young Adult Fiction

March 23, 2024 10AM – 11:30AM

OMNI HOTEL

Two lush teen love stories set in otherworldly worlds bring two Caribbean authors together: Lauren Blackwood, author of Wildblood; and Lauren Yero, author of Under this Forgetful Sky.

Moments in Time: Historical Fiction Breakfast

March 23, 2024 10AM – 12:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

TICKETED EVENT

Enjoy a delectable breakfast and sparkling mimosas with authors Brinda Charry, Adriana Trigiani and Jeanette Walls, in conversation with Rachel Beanland.

Burn The Page with Danica Roem

March 23, 2024 10:30AM – 12PM

PARAMOUNT THEATER

TICKETED EVENT

A former frontwoman of a metal band and a sitting Virginia Senator. Danica Roem is both.

Expansive Frontiers

March 23, 2024 11AM – 12:30PM

CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS

The spirit of adventure travels through The First Migrants: How Black Homesteaders’ Quest for Land and Freedom Heralded America’s Great Migration and The Last Ride of the Pony Express: My 2,000-mile Horseback Journey into the Old West.

Sequels & Segues: Crime Wave

March 23, 2024 11:30AM – 1PM

OMNI HOTEL

Three returning Crime Wave authors each share the latest books in their thrilling spy series.

Memory Making and Democracy: A Look Back at August 12, 2017

March 23, 2024 12PM – 1:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

Historians and journalists Aniko Bodroghkozy and Nora Neus revisit the indelible moments of August 12, 2017, when white supremacists descended upon Charlottesville.

The Hurting Kind and Other Poems: U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón 

March 23, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

PARAMOUNT THEATER

TICKETED EVENT

The U.S. Poet Laureate and recent MacArthur “Genius” Awardee will explore her poetry and practice during what promises to be a memorable evening.

Late Fines and Lies: Library Crimes

March 23, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

OMNI HOTEL

Three Crime Wave authors seek killers in the stacks!

Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle

March 23, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS

For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle tells the remarkable story of how the most eloquent public speaker of the American Revolutionary era once again changed history.

Heart, *****, Magic, Chutzpah: Courageous Girls

March 23, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Get inspired by these middle grade authors and their stories!

Growing Organic Food

March 23, 2024 1:30PM – 3PM

OMNI HOTEL

The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food is a one-stop reference for all the key information food gardeners need to grow a healthy garden.

Bark and Bite: YA Stories of Inner Strength

March 23, 2024 1:30PM – 3PM

OMNI HOTEL

In both Gone Wolf and The Night Fox, canine creatures allow girls to find their own bark and bite: an inner force each never knew she had.

Healing Words: Poetry and Health

March 23, 2024 3PM – 4:30PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Two poets examine how the mind and body ail and heal.

Opinions with Roxane Gay 

March 23, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

PARAMOUNT THEATER

TICKETED EVENT

Gay will bring her sharp and witty acumen to the Virginia Festival of the Book in a discussion of “Opinions: A Decade Arguments Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business.”

Book Tour: James by Percival Everett 

March 23, 2024 6:30PM – 8PM

PARAMOUNT THEATER

TICKETED EVENT

With its release in mid-March, 2024, you will be among the first readers to be swept away in Percival Everett’s reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution

March 24, 2024 11AM – 12:30PM

MONTICELLO'S DAVID M RUBENSTEIN VISITOR CENTER

In her new book, presidential historian Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky explores how, when faced with crises and instability, George Washington created a cabinet of advisors and a structure of how it would guide him.

Gladys S. Blizzard Lecture with Prudence Peiffer, Author of The Slip

March 24, 2024 1PM – 2:30PM

THE FRALIN MUSEUM OF ART AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

TICKETED EVENT

Art historian Prudence Peiffer’s book The Slip examines six visual artists and the work they created on the edge of Manhattan in the 1950s.

The Write Start: Moseley Speed Critique 

March 24, 2024 1PM – 3PM

CENTRAL JMRL LIBRARY

Panelists will read aloud from anonymous submissions of the first 100 words of original, unpublished manuscripts, then discuss story elements that work, suggest story elements that could be improved, and answer questions from the audience.

Wild, Tamed, Lost, and Revived: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South

March 24, 2024 1:30PM – 3PM

JAMES MONROE’S HIGHLAND

In this book, Diane Flynt shares her own journey as a farmer and cidery founder, along with interviews from other orchardists, cidermakers, farmers, and more.

UVA MFA Reading at Visible Records

March 24, 2024 2PM – 3:30PM

VISIBLE/RECORDS

Celebrate four recent graduates of UVA’s MFA program and Area Program in Poetry Writing as they read from recently published works.

Festival Finale at Decipher Brewing

March 24, 2024 4PM – 5:30PM

DECIPHER BREWING

Let’s toast to another 30 years! When the 2024 Virginia Festival of the Book comes to a close, join us to celebrate another great season at Decipher Brewing.

Date: March 20 - 24, 2024

Location: Various Venues in Charlottesville, VA

Click here for more information