The 2018 Virginia Festival of the Book, a program of VFH, will feature the following headliners, whose work grapples with topics of race and history, social equality, international policy, culinary histories, war, and fake news, through diverse genres including poetry, youth literature, legal thrillers, literary fiction, and memoir:

• NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, author of Chasing Space
• Fiction writer and essayist Nathan Englander, author of Dinner at the Center of the Earth
• Crime fiction and television writer Attica Locke, author of Bluebird, Bluebird and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction-winning novelPleasantville
• Lawyer, father, and advocate for the U.S. Constitution Khizr Khan, author of An American Family and This Is Our Constitution
• African American foodways and culinary historian Michael Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South
• Poet and editor Kevin Young, author of Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
• Acclaimed young adult writer Jason Reynolds, author of Ghost

Tickets for select Festival programs go on sale at VaBook.org on Thursday, September 21, 2017 at 9:00 AM.

Read & Lead Lunch with Leland Melvin

NASA astronaut Leland Melvin, author of Chasing Space, will speak at the Read & Lead Lunch on Wednesday, March 21.
He is an engineer and former NFL wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, and served as a co-chair of the White House’s STEM Education Task Force as well as the NASA Associate Administrator for Education. Melvin will also be a Youth Headliner for the 2018 Festival, speaking to 2,400 local students.

Presented with support from Signature Family Wealth Advisors; co-hosted by Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce. Presented with support from lead sponsor Dominion Energy, with additional support from Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital, and Friends of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library.

Literary Luncheon with Nathan Englander

Fiction writer and essayist Nathan Englander, author of Dinner at the Center of the Earth, will speak at the Literary Luncheon on Thursday, March 22.
He is the author of The Ministry of Special Cases and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Crime Wave Brunch with Attica Locke

Crime fiction and television writer Attica Locke, author of Bluebird, Bluebird and the Harper Lee Prize-winning Pleasantville, will speak at the Crime Wave Brunch on Saturday, March 24.
Her work has been longlisted for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction and nominated for the Edgar Award, NAACP Image Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Presented with support from the University of Virginia Gamma Knife Center.

New menus for Festival banquets!

This past summer, we worked with the fantastic chefs and staff at the Omni Hotel to create new menus for 2018, tasting lots of delicious options and selecting only the best. (It was hard work, but somebody had to do it!)

Click here to see menus for each of the programs above »

Khizr Khan

Lawyer, father, and advocate for the U.S. Constitution Khizr Khan will speak on Thursday, March 22about his forthcoming books, An American Family and This Is Our Constitution.

His son, U.S. Army captain Humayun Khan, a U.Va. graduate, was killed in 2004 while stopping a suicide attack in Iraq and posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Khizr holds an LLM from Harvard Law School.

Michael W. Twitty

African American foodways and culinary historian Michael W. Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South and the award-winning Afroculinaria blog, will speak and host cooking demonstrations at the Festival, with the Wesley Foundation.
He was named one of 50 people changing the South by Southern Living and was a 2016 TED Fellow.

Kevin Young

Poet and editor Kevin Young will speak about his forthcoming nonfiction book, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News (November 2017).

He is director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, incoming New Yorker poetry editor, and 2016 inductee to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His work has been long-listed and selected as a finalist for the National Book Award.

Jason Reynolds

Acclaimed writer of young people’s literature Jason Reynolds will participate in a program on Wednesday, March 21.

He is a Kirkus Award winner, a Walter Dean Myers Award winner, an NAACP Image Award winner, and the recipient of multiple Coretta Scott King honors.
He has also been selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and is currently on the longlist for the 2017 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

Don’t forget! Tickets to select Festival programs will be available at VaBook.orgbeginning Thursday, September 21 at 9:00 AM. Additional authors and programs for the 2018 Virginia Festival of the Book will be announced as they are confirmed.
The Festival appreciates the ongoing support of our sponsors. Wish to join them? Contact Jane Kulow at 434-924-7548 or [email protected].