Arts This Week: The Virginia Festival of the Book
By Sage Tanguay
Sage Tanguay 00:08
The Virginia Festival of the Book will take place Thursday, March 20th through Sunday, March 23rd. For Arts This Week, we spoke with Kalela Williams, the Director of the Virginia Center for the Book.
Kalela Williams 00:19
My name is Kalela Williams, and I’m the director of the Virginia Center for the Book, which produces the Virginia Festival of the Book. The Virginia Center for the Book is part of Virginia Humanities, which is the state Humanities Council. And the Virginia Center for the Book has a book art studio and program. It does year round literary programs, and it does the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. The Virginia Festival of the Book brings together readers and authors from all over the country, and especially from Virginia, to come together to talk books, reading, literacy, literature. And it brings together all different types of genres of books, everything from poetry to memoir to nonfiction to historical nonfiction, for instance. It brings together all of these different genres. There are different programs, there are different author events, panel discussions, concerts, you name it. We are just really excited about the Virginia Festival. The 2025 Virginia Festival of the book takes place March 20th through the 23rd. Most of our events are centered in downtown Charlottesville, so they’re mostly centered on the Downtown Mall. That includes the Omni Hotel; It includes city space, it includes the JMRL library and some other venues that are sprinkled throughout the Downtown Mall. We also have programs at Monticello, at James Madison’s Highlands and at UVA. So we get throughout the city, but we’re mostly centered downtown.
Sage Tanguay 01:49
Who might be interested in attending.
Kalela Williams 01:52
So anybody who’s interested in books, in ideas, in thoughts, in curiosity, would be interested in attending the Virginia Festival of the Book. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a traditional reader, there is something for you at the Virginia Festival of the Book. And if you do think of yourself as a reader and you are into books, we have more than 100 authors who will be visiting the festival. So this is a chance to talk to authors, to meet them, to hear about their books, to meet booksellers, and it’s just an incredible community of reading coming together and celebrating the art of literature.
Sage Tanguay 02:30
Is there anything that’s unique about this year that you’re looking forward to in particular?
Kalela Williams 02:34
There are a few things about this year that I’m especially excited about. We’re having a kickoff party with live music, and it’s centered around the book How Women Made Music. So we’re really excited about that. We are also having a historical fiction breakfast with Chris Bohjalian and Kimberly Brock, and both of them wrote novels that are set in the 1800s. Again, it’s a sort of transportive of historical fiction. We also have an event with two best sellers, Emma Donoghue and Louis Bayard, and it’s a champagne and cake event. So if you like champagne and you like cake and you’re like lush historical fiction, this is definitely an event that you want to attend. We’re having an event called Black Fantastical which is Black fantasy authors talking about their works, and I’m really excited about that. And I will actually be part of the festival myself, because I wrote a book called Tangleroot, and I’ll be talking about my experience in the publishing process. So I’m a little nervous, but I’m very excited about that as well. So we’ve got so many things. The big program that I’m really, really gratified to do is a tribute to Nikki Giovanni. The poet and activist. Nikki Giovanni was part of Virginia Humanities board for a long time, and she was a big supporter of some of our initiatives and our programs at Virginia Humanities and we are paying homage to her work and her legacy. Of course, she passed away in December, so we’ve got a program that brings together poets and music and dance into an unforgettable evening to celebrate the work and the wide ranging ways that Nikki Giovanni has changed the world.
Sage Tanguay 04:12
If people want more information, where should they get that?
Kalela Williams 04:14
They should go to vabook.org
Sage Tanguay 04:18
The festival runs March 20th through the 23rd and a full schedule of events can be found at vabook.org.
Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance music, theater and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu
