Must-see panels at the Festival of the Book

Each March, visiting and local literati of all ages and reading preferences fill Charlottesville for the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. History buffs and romance readers mingle with self-published writers and award-winning authors including John Grisham, Lois Lowry, and John Lewis. Attendees have lots of choices to make during the five-day festival (March 19-23). Elaborate transportation routes […]

Charlottesville author’s novel remembers Camille in vivid detail

Mary Buford Hitz was in her late 20s when Hurricane Camille’s devastating floods hit Nelson County on the night of August 19 1969, killing 153 people in a few hours and forever changing the mountain landscape. Hitz, a Richmond native who now lives in Charlottesville, was staying on family property in Afton that late summer […]

ARTS Pick: Diane Cluck

Though she cut her musical teeth in NYC’s Lower East Side among other notables in the anti-folk game, Diane Cluck now resides in Virginia—a fitting landscape for her lovely and lonely brand of intuitive songwriting. Her first release in eight years, Boneset is a collection of songs written during her hiatus and presented in loose […]

Local authors turn to self-publishing with mixed emotions, success

When a heart attack left Avery Chenoweth wondering how much time he had left, the author decided to self-publish for the first time. A Charlottesville resident since 1990, Chenoweth had already published Albemarle: A Story of Landscape and American Identity, Empires in the Forest: Jamestown and the Making of America, and the short story collection […]

WriterHouse sponsors new creative nonfiction contest

For many years, The Hook ran a writing contest in conjunction with the Virginia Festival of the Book that was judged by John Grisham. With the newspaper’s closure last summer, it looked like local writers were out of luck if they wanted to compete for cash and readers. But WriterHouse, the local nonprofit dedicated to […]

ARTS Picks: Major and the Monbacks

The ink on their college diplomas is not dry, but the nine members of Major and the Monbacks are already making a splash in the Central Virginia music scene. Defying genres, these energetic artists combine Motown, Ska, and Southern rock with the self-proclaimed “Eastern Seaboard’s Horniest Horn Section.”  Their songs are pure celebration, a tribute […]

Must-see panels at the Virginia Festival of the Book

Each March, visiting and local literati of all ages and reading preferences fill Charlottesville for the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. History buffs and romance readers mingle with self-published writers and award-winning authors including John Grisham, Lois Lowry, and John Lewis. Attendees have lots of choices to make during the five-day festival (March 19-23). […]

EXCLUSIVE! We Are Star Children video premiere for “Die Alone”

They call it “adventure rock,” but there’s really no defining the eclectic sound of We Are Star Children.  Born in 2010 from a humble duo, the group now boasts seven members and an instrumental range that spans across the full breadth of musical style.  Their first album, titled Love to the Wicked, blends playful trumpets […]

ARTS Pick: Excision

A claw-like spaceship hovers above a cityscape as electronic dance music begins to build. The heavy bass finally drops, and a claw releases fiery bombs syncopated with the beat, leveling the city with sound and displayed by the Executioner, a 420 square foot video stage featuring 3D animation. Housed in the center of the behemoth, Canadian DJ […]