Find Your Revolution at the 2026 Virginia Festival of the Book

From stories of people you thought you knew to those you may not have heard of, the Festival is the place to discover revolutionary people. Author Laurie Gwen Shapiro, in her much talked-about book The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon tells the true story of this high-flying icon; while author Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson explores a fashion designer whose work brought women comfort styles we take for granted: pockets, leggings, hoodies, easy-to-wear wrap dresses and ballet flats in Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free. Her event will even feature a demonstration of historical clothing by professor Marcy Linton of the Historic Clothing Collection at UVA's Department of Drama.

The acclaimed photographer Sally Mann saw the world through the lens of a camera. Renew your view during her talk about her new book Art Work: On the Creative Life at the Paramount Theater. Programs in fiction and poetry by acclaimed authors also offer a new way of looking: Liminal Spaces and The Body Poetic interpret ways of seeing through verse, while great fiction in programs like Stories of Place and Belonging and Whirls of Time bring us to new places, real and imagined. You’ll discover that books by authors like Alix Harrow, Princess L. Joy Perry, Iain Haley Pollock or Adrien Matejka are your new favorite reads!

The 2026 Virginia Festival of the Book is bringing back a vendor’s fair. Our Literary Marketplace and Wine Lounge features ten vendors, including the new Virginia Book Arts, selling books and book-related wares! Meet authors, artists and makers and sip wine from Dogwood & Thistle Winery. And as always, the Festival of the Book is a gathering of bookshops all around Charlottesville and Albemarle County: including The Beautiful Idea, Bluebird & Company, Commerce Street Books, Hello Comics, the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center Book Cafe, New Dominion Bookshop, and the UVA Bookstore, all who will be selling festival books after events. You can also take a free, guided walking tour of the Downtown Book District on March 20th in the morning, afternoon, or evening!

...of your seat, that is. The Festival's Killer Reads Series brings crime favorites from authors like Katherine Schellman, John Gilstrap, Alex Finlay and Marisa Kashino, and so many more thrills and whodunnits. This year, we’ll also host true crime T.V. showrunner and executive producer Daniel Messina, the mastermind behind shows like The Real Murders of Atlanta for Oxygen and Women on Death Row for A&E, as well as classics like The First 48 and Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda. So whether you’re sipping cocktails inspired by Polly Stewart’s moonshine-drenched novel The Felon’s Ball, or following twisty turns in High Stakes and Whatever It Takes, you’ll be in suspense!

The 2026 Virginia Festival of the Book is going beyond the page and taking the stage and airwaves. Yours truly will perform excerpts from Tangleroot: A Play of Shadows, a novel brought to life with shadow puppetry. Then, audio producer Nichole Hill will dive into the gossip, scandals, and pop culture that made headlines and then history in pre-Civil Rights Era America, in a live podcast recording of Our Ancestors Were Messy. During the Festival’s Kickoff party, How I Learned to Read (true story), authors and performers will share their favorite memories. You’ll see more shadow puppetry in an opener for Uncanny Appalachia, then hear a chapter of A Miserable Revenge during a staged reading by UVA faculty as they bring to life an 1870s manuscript, written by a formerly enslaved man and forgotten for a century, that has now been rediscovered and published for the first time.

Some ticketed events are already selling out. So don’t spin your wheels: start making plans now! Get started at VaBook.org, where you can register for the Festival: save your favorite events, create a schedule, and stay in the loop on the latest Festival happenings. While you’re at it, make reservations for one of the many hotels, B&Bs, and boutique accommodations in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.


And don’t forget to hang out with our authors before you turn in at our authors’ party. We can’t wait for our revolutionary festival!