�鶹�ƽ��

The Virginia Festival of the Book, an annual celebration of reading Virginia Humanities hosts under the umbrella of the Virginia Center for the Book, kicks off March 20. 

The festival, which runs through March 23, launches with a party centered around women in music. Suz Slezak and Lauren Plank Goans, of the Charlottesville-based band The Golden Hours, will perform. WNRN content director Desiré Moses will discuss how women have shaped the music industry. 

Kalela Williams, director of the Virginia Center for the Book, will also be featured as an author in this year’s festival. (Contributed photo)

This year’s book fest includes a tribute to poet Nikki Giovanni, who died in December. Giovanni was a renowned writer and a former member of Virginia Humanities’ board of directors.

“The Nikki Giovanni tribute is not going to be your typical author event,” Kalela Williams, director of the Virginia Center for the Book, said.

In addition to a reading from former U.S. Poet Laureate and University of Virginia professor Rita Dove, the tribute will include a dance performance and live music. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, along with other writers, will also read poetry at the tribute.

“Whether or not you know Giovanni’s work, we wanted to invite people to celebrate this literary icon with us,” Williams said.

Even if you aren’t a poetry fan, Williams said the festival has programming to offer you.

“We have everything from poetry to nonfiction,” Williams said.

On March 20, festivalgoers can enjoy a discussion of Earl Swift’s bestselling book, “Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island.” Younger readers might be interested in the “Teenage Wasteland” panel about young fictional protagonists navigating adult circumstances. Fans of historical fiction can join “Room” author Emma Donoghue and “The Pale Blue Eye” author Louis Bayard for cake, champagne and a discussion of each writer’s latest novel, both set in the late 19th century.