Virginia Book Festival (officially Virginia Festival of the Book)
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1sallylou61
One of my very favorite annual events in Charlottesville is the Virginia Festival of the Book, a 5-day event (Wednesday through Sunday) held in March. During the festival there are over 100 events for adults, most of which are free, plus a Saturday storyfest program for children. To give a flavor of what is offered, I'm planning to describe the programs which I attend; of course, it will be only a few out of the many offered, and strictly my opinions. Others attending the same event may have different reactions.
The Festival's website is at http://www.vabook.org/index.html/
This Festival directly relates to my personal challenge which includes reading books introduced to (and often purchased at) the Festival.
The Festival's website is at http://www.vabook.org/index.html/
This Festival directly relates to my personal challenge which includes reading books introduced to (and often purchased at) the Festival.
2sallylou61
Day 1. Wednesday, March 19th. Today started out cold and rainy; fortunately, it was not sleeting. At noon I attended the Opening Ceremony which was billed as the 20th anniversary celebration, and was held in the main branch of the Jefferson Madison Regional Library, our local public library. The keynote speaker was Rita Mae Brown, who had been a featured speaker at the first festival in 1994. Ms. Brown gave a very entertaining talk; her most controversial point was she stated that women tend to read more fiction than men. One of the men in the audience challenged this, saying he belonged to a male-only book club which had met for many years and read mostly fiction.
At 6:00 p.m. I attended a poetry session titled Building Community with Poetry. Three local poets, Sofia Starnes (the current Virginia poet laureate), Stanley Galloway who has established a biennial international poetry symposium at Bridgewater College, and Gillian Huang-Tiller who teaches at the University of Virginia at Wise and is involved with encouraging students to meet to discuss literature spoke on the topic of poetry and community; the program was moderated by Sara M. Robinson, a local poet who teaches in the OLLI program at Charlottesville. I purchased Sara Robinson's newest book, Stones for Words, which I had planned ahead of time to buy and had already listed as one of my readings for the April Random CAT challenge, and an anthology, The Nearest Poem Anthology edited by Sofia Starnes in which she has a number of readers name the poem they are "nearest" to and describe their reactions to the poem. Each poem is published followed by the reader's reaction. I will need to read the introduction to find the meaning of "nearest" in this context.
At 6:00 p.m. I attended a poetry session titled Building Community with Poetry. Three local poets, Sofia Starnes (the current Virginia poet laureate), Stanley Galloway who has established a biennial international poetry symposium at Bridgewater College, and Gillian Huang-Tiller who teaches at the University of Virginia at Wise and is involved with encouraging students to meet to discuss literature spoke on the topic of poetry and community; the program was moderated by Sara M. Robinson, a local poet who teaches in the OLLI program at Charlottesville. I purchased Sara Robinson's newest book, Stones for Words, which I had planned ahead of time to buy and had already listed as one of my readings for the April Random CAT challenge, and an anthology, The Nearest Poem Anthology edited by Sofia Starnes in which she has a number of readers name the poem they are "nearest" to and describe their reactions to the poem. Each poem is published followed by the reader's reaction. I will need to read the introduction to find the meaning of "nearest" in this context.
3sallylou61
Day 2. Thursday, March 20th. I had an OLLI class this afternoon, and my husband and I had to stay around home earlier to have our furnace, which had conked out on Monday afternoon, finally fixed. The only program which we attended was titled British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of Empire, which was at 5:00 p.m. at Monticello which usually hosts one event of the festival. Andrew O'Shaughnessy, the author of The Men Who Lost America gave a very interesting and informative talk about his book. He started out his talk showing the different book covers of his book published in the United States and in Great Britain. Although the same picture was used, a detail was used on the American edition, and more of the picture, taking up most of the front of the cover on the British edition. However, even more striking was that the two editions had different subtitles, and the author's name was given differently. The author's full name is Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, which was the form on the American edition; the British one omitted the Jackson. Dr. O'Shaughnessy talked about the ten men most responsible for losing America, and ended with a brief account of how they had lost America. He also showed two clips of movies -- one of which was "bad" (i.e. inaccurate) history and one which was much more reliable.
4sallylou61
Day 3. Friday, March 21st. All the programs which I attended during the daytime were at some of my least favorite venues: Barnes & Noble which has relatively few seats and is rather noisy, and the New Dominion Bookshop which has very few seats on a mezzanine level with additional seats below and many people seated on the stairs.
10:00 a.m. Attended Dangerous Characters, Daunting Events held at Barnes & Noble. This program featured Larry Baker, author of The Education of Nancy Adams; Steve Weddle, author of Country Hardball; Jon Sealy, author of The Whiskey Baron, and Mary Buford Hitz, author of Riding to Camille. I went primarily to hear Ms. Hitz, both since I had been on a tour of her home many years ago to see the architecture and because I am interested in Hurricane Camille, which did extensive damage with great loss of life in Nelson County, a county south of Charlottesville. The program was moderated by Martha Woodroof. I was disappointed in the way Ms. Woodroof moderated; she had each other first briefly tell about the content of his/her book, then had each author read and passage from his/her book, and then asked them various questions. I think that it works better when the panelists have more time to speak about their books instead of having it so chopped up, especially since the audience was not told ahead of time that this is the way the program would be run. All the books sounded mildly interesting, but not enough to make me want to read any of them. I was disappointed to hear that Ms. Hitz's book about Camille was about horseback riders who were overtaken by Camille; there was a lot of horse jargon in the passage Ms. Hitz read.
2:00 p.m. The Girls of Atomic City. This is one of the best if not the best program I ever attended at the book festival. Nancy O'Brien, the first female mayor of Charlottesville many years ago, interviewed Denise Kiernan about her book, Girls of Atomic City which is about the young females, many just out of high school or in their 20s, who were hired to work toward the World War II effort in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in the making of the atomic bomb. These women were hired at $.79 an hour, good wages in those days, to be transported to a secret location to work on a secret project. The women did not know what they were doing, and were closely supervised. They could not talk to each other or anyone else about what they were doing, and their mail -- both to and from outsiders -- was censored. Ms. O'Brien had obviously read the book, and asked descriptive questions which Ms. Kiernan skillfully answered. Ms. Kiernan is an excellent speaker, and made me eager to read her book. My husband and I did not buy her book then since we did not need it autographed, and the small New Dominion Bookshop was not equipped to handle sales expeditiously. I wanted to get to the next event.
4:00 p.m. Hot Issues Facing the USA, held at Barnes & Noble, featured Ben Railton, author of both The Chinese Exclusion Act and of Redefining American Identity: from Cabeza DeVaca to Barach Obama; Sarah Erdreich, author of Generation Roe: inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement; and Leona Wen, author of When Doctors Don't Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests. This was an excellent program in which the moderator, Blake Caravati, introduced the panelists and let them tell their stories followed by a question and answer period. The panelists showed empathy as each other shared the stories in their books. Dr. Wen was particularly poignant in her description of the misdiagnosis of a woman with breast cancer who was not listened to until it was too late; the woman was her mother. During the q&a session, attenders expressed dismay that these topics were still hot (i.e. had not be solved); several spoke of their experiences with abortion.
I purchased the books of both Ms. Erdreich and Dr. Wen and got them signed in addition to purchasing The Girls of Atomic City. So far, I have purchased 5 books at the festival plus one other I saw while waiting for the program to begin at New Dominion Bookshop, which I would not have otherwise seen and purchased.
8:00 p.m. Crime Wave: Friday Night Frights, a crime wave program featuring Lisa Scottoline, Victoria Thompson, John Gilstrap, and Dan Fesperman with Ellen Crosby as a last minute substitute moderator. An enjoyable program although there were problems with the microphones. The panel clearly enjoyed being together, and were joking, etc. even before the program began. Some time ago on the Mystery CAT challenge wiki we discussed women versus men mystery writers. After this presentation, I clearly preferred the women; these men had written in a style and about topics in which I am not interested.
I purchased cheap, mass market paperback editions of Lisa Scottoline's Final Appeal and Victoria Thompson's Murder on St. Mark's Place; Victoria Thompson will be a new author for me.
10:00 a.m. Attended Dangerous Characters, Daunting Events held at Barnes & Noble. This program featured Larry Baker, author of The Education of Nancy Adams; Steve Weddle, author of Country Hardball; Jon Sealy, author of The Whiskey Baron, and Mary Buford Hitz, author of Riding to Camille. I went primarily to hear Ms. Hitz, both since I had been on a tour of her home many years ago to see the architecture and because I am interested in Hurricane Camille, which did extensive damage with great loss of life in Nelson County, a county south of Charlottesville. The program was moderated by Martha Woodroof. I was disappointed in the way Ms. Woodroof moderated; she had each other first briefly tell about the content of his/her book, then had each author read and passage from his/her book, and then asked them various questions. I think that it works better when the panelists have more time to speak about their books instead of having it so chopped up, especially since the audience was not told ahead of time that this is the way the program would be run. All the books sounded mildly interesting, but not enough to make me want to read any of them. I was disappointed to hear that Ms. Hitz's book about Camille was about horseback riders who were overtaken by Camille; there was a lot of horse jargon in the passage Ms. Hitz read.
2:00 p.m. The Girls of Atomic City. This is one of the best if not the best program I ever attended at the book festival. Nancy O'Brien, the first female mayor of Charlottesville many years ago, interviewed Denise Kiernan about her book, Girls of Atomic City which is about the young females, many just out of high school or in their 20s, who were hired to work toward the World War II effort in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in the making of the atomic bomb. These women were hired at $.79 an hour, good wages in those days, to be transported to a secret location to work on a secret project. The women did not know what they were doing, and were closely supervised. They could not talk to each other or anyone else about what they were doing, and their mail -- both to and from outsiders -- was censored. Ms. O'Brien had obviously read the book, and asked descriptive questions which Ms. Kiernan skillfully answered. Ms. Kiernan is an excellent speaker, and made me eager to read her book. My husband and I did not buy her book then since we did not need it autographed, and the small New Dominion Bookshop was not equipped to handle sales expeditiously. I wanted to get to the next event.
4:00 p.m. Hot Issues Facing the USA, held at Barnes & Noble, featured Ben Railton, author of both The Chinese Exclusion Act and of Redefining American Identity: from Cabeza DeVaca to Barach Obama; Sarah Erdreich, author of Generation Roe: inside the Future of the Pro-Choice Movement; and Leona Wen, author of When Doctors Don't Listen: How to Avoid Misdiagnoses and Unnecessary Tests. This was an excellent program in which the moderator, Blake Caravati, introduced the panelists and let them tell their stories followed by a question and answer period. The panelists showed empathy as each other shared the stories in their books. Dr. Wen was particularly poignant in her description of the misdiagnosis of a woman with breast cancer who was not listened to until it was too late; the woman was her mother. During the q&a session, attenders expressed dismay that these topics were still hot (i.e. had not be solved); several spoke of their experiences with abortion.
I purchased the books of both Ms. Erdreich and Dr. Wen and got them signed in addition to purchasing The Girls of Atomic City. So far, I have purchased 5 books at the festival plus one other I saw while waiting for the program to begin at New Dominion Bookshop, which I would not have otherwise seen and purchased.
8:00 p.m. Crime Wave: Friday Night Frights, a crime wave program featuring Lisa Scottoline, Victoria Thompson, John Gilstrap, and Dan Fesperman with Ellen Crosby as a last minute substitute moderator. An enjoyable program although there were problems with the microphones. The panel clearly enjoyed being together, and were joking, etc. even before the program began. Some time ago on the Mystery CAT challenge wiki we discussed women versus men mystery writers. After this presentation, I clearly preferred the women; these men had written in a style and about topics in which I am not interested.
I purchased cheap, mass market paperback editions of Lisa Scottoline's Final Appeal and Victoria Thompson's Murder on St. Mark's Place; Victoria Thompson will be a new author for me.
5sallylou61
Day 4. Saturday, March 22nd.
10:00 a.m. The Railroad in American Life. Both John and I attended this very interesting program held in the City Council Chambers where programs are usually taped. Thus, the public will probably get to see this program sometime on PBS. The panel consisted of James Porterfield, author of Dining by Rail: the History and the Railroads of America's Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine; Dennis Drabelle, author of The Great American Railroad War; Tony Reevy, author of O. Winston Link: Life Along the Line; and Eric Riback, author of Rail U.S.A. Museums and Trips (which is issued in three different sections covering different parts of the country). The program was moderated by Bella Stander, Eric Riback's wife. All the speakers were both knowledgeable and excellent; there was considerable interaction among them. I am not as much of a railroad fan as my husband, whose grandfather worked for the Western Maryland Railroad although I certainly enjoy taking train trips, both for traveling and excursion. I remember having food on fine dishes when my mother, brother, and I traveled on the railroad between Pennsylvania and Missouri three summers during the 1940s when I was a young child and Mother brought us back to visit our grandparents in Pennsylvania every summer; I particularly enjoyed Mr. Porterfield's talk about a book which my husband already owned. During the program, I realized that O. Winston Link was a famous photographer of railroads and small town life, and that I have been to the museum featuring his work in Roanoke, VA. so that the author was talking about photographs I had seen.
Noon. Crime Wave: Disappearances, Deaths, and Denial. An excellent program concerning non-fiction writing about crime; what I would think of as true crime. This program featured James Swanson, author of End of Days and The President Has Been Shot (giving a minute-by-minute account of what happened during the JFK assassination including the movements of Oswald, JFK, and Jackie); Mark Pinsky, author of Met Her on the Mountain: a Forty-Year Quest to Solve the Appalachian Cold-Case Murder of Nancy Morgan (a VISTA worker who was killed near where the author was going to college); Steven Levingston author of Little Demon in the City of Light: a True Study of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris (which features a female killer who disappeared and when finally found claimed to be under the spell of hypnotism); and Carl Hoffman, author of Savage Harvest: a Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art (who shows that Michael Rockefeller, who diasppeared in the early 1960s, probably swam to shore and was eaten by cannibals instead of drowning at sea). Although I did not purchase any of these books (which are relatively new and still in hardback), I will probably try to borrow them from a library (although I already am well behind in books I want to read).
2:00 Crime Wave: Assassinations. This was another interesting session although I did not find it as intriguing as the earlier session. This one featured James Swanson, who pretty much told what he had in the previous session although here he talked about needing to know the various conspiracy theories cold in order to disprove them (I'm still not sure the difference between his two books although I did not look carefully at them at the sales table); Daniel Stashower, author of The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln before the Civil War (who spoke rather softly and was hard for the audience towards the back of the room to hear), and David Stewart, author of The Lincoln Deception, which is fiction. There are so many non-fiction books about the Lincoln's assassination that I would prefer to stick with them in my reading.
8:00 p.m. Homecoming: a Conversation with Some Favorite Authors. This was one of the few programs for which the audience had to buy tickets ($20 each). I consider that price really a contribution to the whole event: the program was a big disappointment to me, and a friend of mine also felt it was a flop. The program featured Kwame Alexander, author of He Said, She Said; Rita Mae Brown, author of the Sneaky Pie Mysteries; Sonia Manzano, author of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (and Maria in the Sesame Street Program), E. Ethelbert Miller, author of Fathering Words: the Making of an African-American Writer: and Lee Smith, author of Guests on Earth. The program was moderated by Joanne V. Gabbin, who introduced the program as the authors coming around a table, and as she introduced each one, asked the audience to welcome them to the table. I think that Ms. Gabbin tried to control the program too much instead of allowing the authors to be themselves. Also, the sections of the books they read were often not very interesting to me. I was particularly disappointed with Rita Mae Brown's selection although I think it would be hard to read on short piece from one mystery novel in the series. After the program, I did not feel that I wanted to read books by any of these authors except Rita Mae whom I had heard speak earlier in the festival.
10:00 a.m. The Railroad in American Life. Both John and I attended this very interesting program held in the City Council Chambers where programs are usually taped. Thus, the public will probably get to see this program sometime on PBS. The panel consisted of James Porterfield, author of Dining by Rail: the History and the Railroads of America's Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine; Dennis Drabelle, author of The Great American Railroad War; Tony Reevy, author of O. Winston Link: Life Along the Line; and Eric Riback, author of Rail U.S.A. Museums and Trips (which is issued in three different sections covering different parts of the country). The program was moderated by Bella Stander, Eric Riback's wife. All the speakers were both knowledgeable and excellent; there was considerable interaction among them. I am not as much of a railroad fan as my husband, whose grandfather worked for the Western Maryland Railroad although I certainly enjoy taking train trips, both for traveling and excursion. I remember having food on fine dishes when my mother, brother, and I traveled on the railroad between Pennsylvania and Missouri three summers during the 1940s when I was a young child and Mother brought us back to visit our grandparents in Pennsylvania every summer; I particularly enjoyed Mr. Porterfield's talk about a book which my husband already owned. During the program, I realized that O. Winston Link was a famous photographer of railroads and small town life, and that I have been to the museum featuring his work in Roanoke, VA. so that the author was talking about photographs I had seen.
Noon. Crime Wave: Disappearances, Deaths, and Denial. An excellent program concerning non-fiction writing about crime; what I would think of as true crime. This program featured James Swanson, author of End of Days and The President Has Been Shot (giving a minute-by-minute account of what happened during the JFK assassination including the movements of Oswald, JFK, and Jackie); Mark Pinsky, author of Met Her on the Mountain: a Forty-Year Quest to Solve the Appalachian Cold-Case Murder of Nancy Morgan (a VISTA worker who was killed near where the author was going to college); Steven Levingston author of Little Demon in the City of Light: a True Study of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Epoque Paris (which features a female killer who disappeared and when finally found claimed to be under the spell of hypnotism); and Carl Hoffman, author of Savage Harvest: a Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art (who shows that Michael Rockefeller, who diasppeared in the early 1960s, probably swam to shore and was eaten by cannibals instead of drowning at sea). Although I did not purchase any of these books (which are relatively new and still in hardback), I will probably try to borrow them from a library (although I already am well behind in books I want to read).
2:00 Crime Wave: Assassinations. This was another interesting session although I did not find it as intriguing as the earlier session. This one featured James Swanson, who pretty much told what he had in the previous session although here he talked about needing to know the various conspiracy theories cold in order to disprove them (I'm still not sure the difference between his two books although I did not look carefully at them at the sales table); Daniel Stashower, author of The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln before the Civil War (who spoke rather softly and was hard for the audience towards the back of the room to hear), and David Stewart, author of The Lincoln Deception, which is fiction. There are so many non-fiction books about the Lincoln's assassination that I would prefer to stick with them in my reading.
8:00 p.m. Homecoming: a Conversation with Some Favorite Authors. This was one of the few programs for which the audience had to buy tickets ($20 each). I consider that price really a contribution to the whole event: the program was a big disappointment to me, and a friend of mine also felt it was a flop. The program featured Kwame Alexander, author of He Said, She Said; Rita Mae Brown, author of the Sneaky Pie Mysteries; Sonia Manzano, author of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (and Maria in the Sesame Street Program), E. Ethelbert Miller, author of Fathering Words: the Making of an African-American Writer: and Lee Smith, author of Guests on Earth. The program was moderated by Joanne V. Gabbin, who introduced the program as the authors coming around a table, and as she introduced each one, asked the audience to welcome them to the table. I think that Ms. Gabbin tried to control the program too much instead of allowing the authors to be themselves. Also, the sections of the books they read were often not very interesting to me. I was particularly disappointed with Rita Mae Brown's selection although I think it would be hard to read on short piece from one mystery novel in the series. After the program, I did not feel that I wanted to read books by any of these authors except Rita Mae whom I had heard speak earlier in the festival.
6sallylou61
Day 5. Sunday, March 23rd. This is the last day of the Festival, and it is winding down with many fewer programs.
1:30 Program at Ash Lawn Highland (home of James Monroe) which for at least the second straight year has sponsored a program on the last day of the festival, featuring one author. This year the author was Alan Taylor who recently wrote The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, a book which is in the running for several specialized awards. In his lecture, Dr. Taylor, who will become a member of the UVA (University of Virginia) faculty in the fall, spoke about the War of 1812. Unfortunately, he spoke in a very low voice and gave what I felt was a boring history lecture. This event, especially following the Saturday night fiasco, was a letdown at end the Festival, which as a whole featured excellent programs. I was especially disappointed since last year Ash Lawn Highland featured a dynamic speaker who went around talking to the members of the audience prior to the program.
1:30 Program at Ash Lawn Highland (home of James Monroe) which for at least the second straight year has sponsored a program on the last day of the festival, featuring one author. This year the author was Alan Taylor who recently wrote The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, a book which is in the running for several specialized awards. In his lecture, Dr. Taylor, who will become a member of the UVA (University of Virginia) faculty in the fall, spoke about the War of 1812. Unfortunately, he spoke in a very low voice and gave what I felt was a boring history lecture. This event, especially following the Saturday night fiasco, was a letdown at end the Festival, which as a whole featured excellent programs. I was especially disappointed since last year Ash Lawn Highland featured a dynamic speaker who went around talking to the members of the audience prior to the program.
7lkernagh
Sounds like a very busy and impressive book festival! You must be exhausted, but in a happy exhausted sort or way. ;-)
8sallylou61
Re No. 7 Thanks, Lori. As a whole, I really enjoyed the festival even though it ended on a low note.
9-Eva-
Shame about the ending - you'd want to go out with a bang - but the rest of the festival sounded great and, like @lkernagh said, a little exhausting! :)
10millie_anne
Hi SallyLou and others,
I'm an Australian university student and I'm doing a project on book & literary festivals. As part of my project, I really want to get to know the reasons why people attend, and what they like and don't like about these festivals, and so I've made an online survey.
If any of you have fifteen or twenty minutes to spare, I would really appreciate it if you would take the survey. It's available here: http://monasheducation.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eS5yuFzISslKPTT
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask here or shoot me an email at maweb5 at student dot monash dot edu
Thanks :-)
I'm an Australian university student and I'm doing a project on book & literary festivals. As part of my project, I really want to get to know the reasons why people attend, and what they like and don't like about these festivals, and so I've made an online survey.
If any of you have fifteen or twenty minutes to spare, I would really appreciate it if you would take the survey. It's available here: http://monasheducation.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eS5yuFzISslKPTT
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask here or shoot me an email at maweb5 at student dot monash dot edu
Thanks :-)
