Videos

John Grisham was interviewed while at the Virginia Festival of the Book. He discussed his career as a novelist, his writing practices, and his research on his lone nonfiction title, The Inno…

John Charles Thomas talked about his time on the Virginia Supreme Court as the first Black person to hold that office. He took office in 1983. James Monroe’s Highland and the Virginia Festiv…

Author Michael Krepon looked at the success of nuclear deterrence between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the status of these arms controls in present day. He …

Author Tara Nurin talked about how women have been involved in making beer throughout history, from village brewer to brewery CEOs. This virtual program was part of the Virginia Festival of …

Authors Benjamin Gilmer (The Other Dr. Gilmer) and Chip Jones (The Organ Thieves) talked about their books and the failures of the penal system and the history of medical mistreatment of Afr…

Author Jonathan Katz (Gangsters of Capitalism) and author Albert Samaha (Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes) spoke with New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie about American colonial…

William Kurtz of the Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia hosted a discussion with authors Ann Tucker and Adrian Brettle about the Confederacy’s domestic and internatio…

Alec MacGillis (Fulfillment) and Amelia Pang (Made in China) discussed their books about the downsides of our global, internet-driven consumer economy. This virtual event was part of the Vir…

Louis Chude-Sokei (Floating in a Most Peculiar Way) and Nadia Owusu (Aftershocks) discussed their international upbringing and eventual journey to the United States.

Elizabeth Catte, What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia, Steven Stoll Ramp Hollow, and Wendy Welch, Fall or Fly, discussed the stereotypes and reality of life in Appalachia. This discus…

Authors Jesse Jarnow (Wasn’t That a Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle for the Soul of America), Tim Mohr (Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Ber…

Authors Laurie Halse Anderson (Shout) and Jason Reynolds (Long Way Down) talked about writing about tough topics for young adults.

Biographers Raymond Arsenault (Arthur Ashe: A Life) and David Blight (Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom) talked about their autobiographies of two famous African-American activist-leade…

Melanie Hatter, author of Malawi’s Sisters, talked about race and crime in America.

Authors Hal Crowther (Freedom Fighters and Hell Raisers) and Charles Marsh (Can I Get a Witness?) talked about their collections of biographical essays on unexpected and underappreciated lea…

Richard Harris, Rigor Mortis, Dave Levitan, Not A Scientist, and Meredith Wadman, The Vaccine Race, talked about science literacy, policy, and ethics. This discussion was part of the Virgini…

John Farrell, Richard Nixon, Will Hitchcock, The Age of Eisenhower, and Sharon Weinberger, The Imagineers of War, talked about the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower. This e…

A discussion with National Book Award finalists that included Erica Armstrong Dunbar (Never Caught), David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon), and Kevin Young (Bunk). National Book Foundatio…

From the Virginia Festival of the Book, a discussion about American politics in the age of Donald Trump that included Caitriona Perry, In America, Jason Altmire, Dead Center, and Nicole Hemm…

Authors David Goldfield, The Gifted Generation, and Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains, talked about the good and bad aspects of American democracy. They spoke at the Virginia Festival of th…