
Borderlands
The colonial era is usually seen as prim and proper – a time when manners were refined and marriage was sacrosanct. But that period may have been much wilder than previously thought. Liz Elizondo says in colonial Spanish Texas, love affairs didn’t just occasionally happen…they were the norm.

Exploring the Infinite Potential of Women in Old-Time Music
Grants coordinator Toni Doman currently spends her days at Bristol’s Birthplace of Country Music Museum sifting through content for the museum’s upcoming Women in Old-Time Music exhibit. But you can tell that she’s really a musician. Doman isn’t separate from her subjects. She is one of them.

Poetry for Today: Readings by Victoria Chang and Rita Dove
In partnership with the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and as the closing event for the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book, we present poets Victoria Chang (Obit) and Rita Dove (Playlist …

Making Sense of the World, Making Sense of Ourselves: Graphic Memoirs
Courtney Cook (The Way She Feels: My Life on the Borderline in Pictures and Pieces) and Laura Gao (Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American) explore how growing …

The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind: A Conversation with Andrew O’Shaughnessy
Historian Andrew O’Shaughnessy, (The Illimitable Freedom of the Human Mind) discusses his most recent book, a twin biography of Thomas Jefferson in retirement and of the University of Virginia in …

Southern Landscapes: Real and Imagined
Authors Ralph Eubanks (A Place Like Mississippi), Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (My Monticello), and Imani Perry (South to America) take center stage at this Festival headliner event to discuss the storied …

Preserving and Using Native Plants
Authors Georgann Eubanks (Saving the Wild South), and Kat Maier (Energetic Herbalism) discuss ecological stewardship and resources for medicinal plant uses from many traditions. Much more than guidebooks, these authors …

Transformative Desire: Literary Fiction
Alex DiFrancesco (Transmutation), Lindsay Merbaum (The Gold Persimmon), and Morgan Thomas (Manywhere) discuss their genre-defying fiction, populated by characters who grapple with ideas of identity, desire, free will, transformation, and …

Bodies in Space & Time: Identity in Sci-Fi & Speculative Fiction
Ryka Aoki (Light from Uncommon Stars), Micaiah Johnson (The Space Between Worlds), and Lincoln Michel (The Body Scout) discuss the explorations of race, gender, and identity posed in their science …

NBF Presents: An Afternoon with the National Book Awards
2021 National Book Award–honored authors Robert Jones, Jr. (The Prophets, Finalist, Fiction), Amber McBride (Me (Moth), Finalist, Young People’s Literature), and Jason Mott (Hell of a Book, Winner, Fiction) join us for …

What We Call Family: Literary Fiction
Dariel Suarez (The Playwright’s House), Jessie van Eerden (Call It Horses), and Kyle Lucia Wu (Win Me Something) delve into the nuances and implications of family, examining these relationships as …

Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: A Conversation with Michael Krepon
Foreign affairs and policy specialist Michael Krepon (Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace), discusses his definitive guide to the history of nuclear arms control, including how the practice was built …