The 2022 edition of the Virginia Festival of the Book begins today in Charlottesville. The COVID-19 pandemic has really done a number on literary festivals, and VA Book is no different. I had been scheduled to be on a panel at the 2020 festival to talk about my novel The Shaman of Turtle Valley, but the pandemic shut down much of the world and the Festival was canceled that year. The 2021 Festival was entirely virtual and I attended some events by Zoom. This year is a hybrid Festival–some events will be in person (with a few of those being live-streamed) and some will be virtual on Zoom.
I will be involved with two panels–one in person and one virtual.
The in-person panel is called Uncertainty Within: Literary Fiction and I’ll be joining novelists Sharon Harrigan and Lesley Wheeler for a reading and discussion moderated by Jody Hobbs Hessler. March 17, 4:00 pm, at the Central JMRL Library in Charlottesville. I’m really excited to talk about my book, Oliver’s Travels, which came out in May 2021, because it has still been hard to do in-person events and meet with readers.
On Saturday, March 19, at 2:00 pm, I’ll be moderating a panel called What We Call Family featuring three terrific novels that are very different but all having a focus on family and family obligations. I’m looking forward to discussing these books with Jessie van Eerden, Dariel Suarez, and Kyle Lucia Wu. (The event requires advance registration, but you can also stream it live on Facebook, I think.)
I hope you can attend these panel discussions or some of the many other events at the Festival.
