Mystery machine: Finish up your summer reading list with a bang during an evening with mystery author Elle Cosimano. She’s got a stack of young-adult thrillers to her name, and the recently published Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the debut novel in her mystery series for adults. The reading is hosted by Bluebird Books, […]
Mystery machine: Finish up your summer reading list with a bang during an evening with mystery author Elle Cosimano. She’s got a stack of young-adult thrillers to her name, and the recently published Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the debut novel in her mystery series for adults. The reading is hosted by Bluebird Books, […]
Winging it: Kenn Kaufman is an extreme birder who’s been at it since the ‘60s, when he dropped out of high school and hit the road in pursuit of feathered creatures. The author, artist, naturalist, and conservationist’s career really took flight when he won 1973’s Big Year birding competition and set the record for most […]
Serendipity has been a good friend to Brian Noyes, owner of the acclaimed Red Truck Bakery. With locations in Marshall and Warrenton, Virginia, 45 employees, and orders pouring in online, Noyes’ business is better than ever and his homespun image endures, in spite of his enormous success. He tells the story of that success, and […]
Around the same time Aja Gabel began learning the alphabet, she began playing the violin. As she became more adept at writing, filling “notebooks with stories as kind of a way to play,” she became more skilled at reading and playing music. When she was 10 years old she traded the violin for the cello […]
It began at a Live Arts callback a few years ago. That’s where Lynn Thorne, a native Virginian who had just moved to Afton, met Jennifer. “We kind of became instant friends, and she shared with me pretty early on that her husband was transgender,” Thorne says. At the time, Thorne admits, she didn’t really […]
There’s no denying it: Charlottesville is a wordsmith-rich town. Whether you’re looking for a page-turner for the beach, autumnal meditations in the form of poetry, or a fireside companion for a winter’s night, there are enough local writers publishing books each year to keep your shelves well-stocked. Here are some of the titles published by […]
Local author and historian Andi Cumbo-Floyd came of age on the Bremo Plantations in Fluvanna County. In central Virginia, “there are plantations everywhere, but we don’t call them that,” says Cumbo-Floyd. “We call them farms or estates.” While she knew “people had been enslaved there,” she says she “didn’t really have an awareness of what […]
‘‘My book came out last year a week before the presidential elections,” says Madeline Iva, author of the fantasy romance Wicked Apprentice. “What I came away with, standing in the blasted devastation of our liberal democratic psyche, was that I’d just written a book about a woman who ends up holding all the power—and people […]
Kathryn Erskine has lived in the Netherlands, Israel, South Africa, Scotland and Newfoundland, but she has called Charlottesville home for the last 14 years. This month marks the release of Erskine’s first picture book, Mama Africa! How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song, and her sixth middle-grade novel, The Incredible Magic of Being. Though […]