Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu and Charlottesville City Councilor Wes Bellamy have a lot in common. They’re both Southerners who, as elected officials, have gotten death threats for daring to say it’s time for Confederate monuments to go. And they’ve both written books on the topic, which brought them to the same Jefferson School […]
Former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu and Charlottesville City Councilor Wes Bellamy have a lot in common. They’re both Southerners who, as elected officials, have gotten death threats for daring to say it’s time for Confederate monuments to go. And they’ve both written books on the topic, which brought them to the same Jefferson School […]
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 […]
Mighty pen: Emilio Estevez didn’t take his father’s stage surname because he wanted to honor his Spanish heritage—and make his own way in the film business. Being the son of Martin Sheen, the brother of Charlie Sheen, the husband of pop star Paula Abdul (for two years), and labeled a member of the Brat Pack […]
For more than two decades, the Voices of Adult Learners reading has brought a diverse range of writers and experiences to the book festival. “We think it’s really special, given the turmoil in Charlottesville over the last couple years,” says Carol Coffey, director of Thomas Jefferson Adult and Career Education at PVCC. “We have this […]
When Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was growing up in Spring Valley, New York, he didn’t realize writing was a career path. He felt drawn toward the art, even though he was unaware that “actual human beings” composed Harry Potter books, science-fiction, and the fantasy works and anime he enjoyed. “I didn’t come from a place where […]
About 100 miles outside of Berlin, Germany, author Tim Mohr stood in a snowy field gripping an axe in his hands. He’d borrowed a friend’s car to get there, and, anticipating neither the sub-zero cold snap nor the fact that he’d have to chop frozen wood in exchange for an interview with a former member […]
Crime author Don Winslow has spent nearly the past 20 of his career writing about the Mexican-American drug trade. “My number-one job and my first priority is to tell a good story, and a good crime story,” says Winslow. Winslow first became interested in the Mexican-American drug business in 1998, after hearing of a massacre […]
Award-winning Canadian author Esi Edugyan’s latest novel, Washington Black, begins in the brutal world of a Barbados sugar plantation in the 1830s. But the story, quite literally, soon soars beyond, as the young boy Washington Black escapes from the plantation in a hot-air balloon, spirited away by an English gentleman-scientist named Titch. The book traces […]
It was freezing cold, slick, and raining sideways the fall night that letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. spoke about his work at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. It was a small crowd, maybe due to the weather, says Maggie Guggenheimer, director of external relations for Virginia Humanities, who helped bring Kennedy to […]
You can tell a lot about a man from the books he reads. C-VILLE checked in with UVA’s President-elect Jim Ryan to get a peek at his bookshelf ahead of his sold-out Virginia Festival of the Book talk on Saturday, “Life’s Essential Questions: A Conversation with Jim Ryan.” Let’s just say that Thomas Jefferson figured […]