Book festival kicks off today; activities include 180 events

By Brian McNeill

Published: March 25, 2008

The Virginia Festival of the Book kicks off today with events featuring veteran TV newsman Roger Mudd, photographs of Earth from outer space, Irish-American gangsters and poetry by 258 feminists.
The annual festival — which last year attracted 20,000 attendees — starts this morning with Mudd discussing his upcoming book “The Place to Be: Washington, CBS, and the Glory Days of Television News” and wraps up Sunday afternoon with bestselling mystery novelist Walter Mosley.
“I always encourage people to look at our schedule and try something they might not have otherwise,” said Nancy Damon, program director for the Virginia Festival of the Book. “Be adventurous.”
The festival features around 180 events at 86 venues throughout Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. The events will focus on all types of books, including history, mysteries, politics, sociology, self-help, food and wine, travel, religion, graphic novels, science fiction, entertainment and much more.
Visitors can still buy tickets for an event at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount Theater featuring M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell, who will discuss his memoir “Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist.” Tickets are also still available for the festival’s closer, titled Walter Mosley: A Literary Life, which is slated for 4 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount Theater.
Tickets have sold out for an author’s reception at UVa featuring Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, former governor and author A. Linwood Holton, former Virginia first lady Jinks Holton and their son, Woody Holton, author of “Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution.”
Tickets have also sold out for luncheons and teas with authors, though organizers said a handful of tickets have opened up for a luncheon — scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Thursday at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel — with Jan Karon, author of the Mitford series and the recent “Home to Holly Springs.” To obtain one of the newly available tickets, the organizers recommended that people drop by the Omni shortly before it begins and ask if the tickets remain.
In other last-minute changes, poet George Garrett will be absent because of illness from the 2 p.m. Thursday panel of five Virginia poet laureates. Plus, the event titled Living the Uncommon Life for Real, featuring John St. Augustine, author of “Living an Uncommon Life: Essential Lessons From 21 Extraordinary People,” has been relocated to the ACAC building on Monticello Avenue.
Susan Coleman, director of the Virginia Center for the Book, said she is most excited about this year’s festival’s offerings for children, particularly the daylong Saturday StoryFest event at the Key and Carver recreation centers and the Village School downtown. It will feature authors such as Arlene Alda, whose books “Here a Face, There a Face” and “Did You Say Pears?” combine her photography with poetry and clever text, encouraging youngsters to look for art in everyday objects.
The Cat in the Hat, McGruff the Crime Dog, and Harris Teeter’s Harry the Dragon will also visit StoryFest.
“I hope it’ll be a peaceable kingdom,” Coleman said.
Allison Baer, marketing manager for the Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the area’s 55 hotels are reporting limited availability, as they are heavily booked.
“Looks like we’re going to have yet another successful festival this year,” she said.