Virginia Festival of the Book: Thursday

Thursday was a very busy day. I started off with a talk at the local Kiwanis Club at 7:00am. That was fun. I'd written some notes on what I wanted to talk about but didn't even look at them. It was very comfortable and it was a nice bunch of folks.

Then it was off to Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book. The Festival started Wednesday, but because of my class I wasn't able to get over the mountain then. I went to the Library where I moderated a panel on "Making Local History Come Alive" before an audience of almost 50. The panelists were great and included local historian Rick Britton, Jack Trammel, Bob Crewdson, and Stauffer Miller. After the presentations there was a lively Q&A, and the panelists were then engaged by audience members after the session was formally over.

Then I headed out to the Barracks Road Barnes & Noble for my reading there. We had a decent crowd. Jason Ockert read from his book, Rabbit Punches and also a new story. Then I read from "William & Frederick", one of the stories in my book, In an Uncharted Country. It was fun to talk to some of the audience members after the reading.

I decided to go home then, because I planned to go down to a reading at Washington & Lee University at 7pm, which I did. It was great to see my friend Porochista Khakpour again, and hear her read from her terrific novel, Sons and Other Flammable Objects.

Long day!