If you enjoyed hearing spooky stories by the campfire when you were a child, just wait until you hear some of your favorite award-winning horror writers sharing spine-tingling tales at Camp Holiday Trails.
“Horror at Holiday Trails,” a ticketed event in the 29th annual Virginia Festival of the Book, will bring New York Times bestselling authors Grady Hendrix, Stephen Graham Jones and Paul Tremblay and three-time Bram Stoker Award recipient Sarah Langan to the popular Charlottesville camp at 7 p.m. on Saturday.
Metaphysical author and tarot card reader Sasha Graham also will be there to peek into the future of attendees between stories, and Aran Donovan, the festival’s new assistant director, will serve as moderator.
Tickets are $20 and $10 for the indoor-outdoor event; dress for the weather, so you’ll be prepared if more than the stories will give you the shivers.
People are also reading…
Shuttles will be departing from the Omni Charlottesville Hotel at roughly 20-minute intervals starting at 5:45 p.m. on a first-come, first-served basis, and no parking will be available at the camp, so check out the festival’s FAQs for all the details.
“We’re very excited about our horror panel,” said Kalela Williams, the new director of the Virginia Festival of the Book. “It’s something very different. We’re looking forward to a diverse festival.”
This year’s festival officially begins Thursday and continues through Sunday with a wide variety of events – most of which are free – for readers of every genre. Live events give pandemic-weary book lovers opportunities to gather again for readings and panel discussions, and livestream options are available for many events for folks with schedule conflicts and others who aren’t quite ready to slip back into crowds yet.
Look for “Rise of the Spy” at 10 a.m. Thursday at Virginia Humanities’ headquarters with Nicholas Reynolds, author of “Need to Know: World War II and the Rise off American Intelligence.” It’s followed at 11:30 a.m. with “Forbidden Dreams: Coming-of-Age Fiction” with Jeffrey Dale Lofton, Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry and William Mark Habeeb.
Tracey Livesay will be on hand for “A Romance Salon: ‘American Royalty’” at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday at Central Library, where she’ll discuss in an informal salon setting how her novel was inspired by the real-life romance of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, now the duke and duchess of Sussex.
Friday will bring two events to the Paramount Theater on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. At 2 p.m. on Friday, Nyle DiMarco, a popular deaf actor, producer and bestselling author of “Deaf Utopia: A Memoir – and a Love Letter to a Way of Life,” will take part in a conversation with musical performer Wawa Snipe.
Snipe is performing this week in Victory Hall Opera’s “Orpheus & Erica,” a deaf play based on a famous opera, which has remaining performances Thursday and Saturday in the University of Virginia’s Cabell Hall Auditorium.
“DiMarco is such a big presence, and we’re super excited to have him here,” Williams said of the event, which brings in UVa’s American Sign Language Program and the school’s division of diversity, equity and inclusion as partners. DiMarco will speak in ASL, with the conversation visible on the large screen for deaf attendees and interpreters sharing it with hearing audience members.
“Finding the Light: Bestsellers Panel” will follow at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, welcoming New York Times bestselling authors Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and Matthew Quick.
“I’m really trying to take the Virginia Humanities mission to heart of, ‘We help Virginians tell their stories,’” Williams said. “You are the only person who can tell your story. Whatever it is, I hope we are that catalyst.”
Williams, who joined the team in October, said the festival continues to resume the breadth and scope it enjoyed before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live events and sent festival discussions online.
“It’s a pared-down festival this year,” Williams said. “We didn’t have time to put together the event we’d have had before the pandemic.”
Livestream options also will make it possible for fans to attend several events that have reached in-person capacity.
To choose your own adventure, take some time to browse the festival schedule by day and venue at vabook.org. In the meantime, here are some more glimpses of the festival’s diversity:
■ 7 p.m. on Thursday at Random Row: In “Taps and Top 10 Hits,” Stereogum senior editor Tom Breihan shares stories from his new book and looks ahead to playlists of the future.
■ 11 a.m. on Friday at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center: “Food and Blackness” with cultural critic Clarkisha Kent and scholar Psyche A. Williams-Forson addresses the ways in which racism influences the world of eating.
■ 1 p.m. on Friday in the Book Arts Center at the Jefferson School: Book Arts Open House will give book fans a chance to see how members of the Virginia Center for the Book’s Book Arts Center actually create books.
■ 6 p.m. on Friday in the V. Earl Dickinson Building at Piedmont Virginia Community College: “Voices of Adult Learners” dives into the various paths students from literacy, General Educational Development and English-as-a-second-language programs took to share their voices with audiences.
■ Noon on Saturday at New Dominion Bookshop: The fifth annual Carol Troxell Reader is Meghan O’Rourke, author of “The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness.”
■ 12:30 p.m. on Saturday at Central Library: Newbery Authors Panel brings in children’s book authors Andrea Beatriz Arango and Meg Medina.
■ 4 p.m. on Saturday at the Jefferson School: “National Book Foundation Presents: An Afternoon with the National Book Awards” discusses how individual stories can shape history with guests John Keene, author of “Punks: New and Selected Poems,” and Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, authors of “His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.”
■ 11 a.m. on Sunday at Ivy Creek Natural Area: “Illustrating the Everyday” is an outdoor program with authors Arwen Donahue and Suzanne Stryk.
■ Noon on Sunday at James Monroe’s Highland: John Charles Thomas, who was the youngest Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia when he was sworn in in 1983, will discuss “The Poetic Justice,” which explores his love of law and of poetry.
Jane Dunlap Sathe is the features editor for The Daily Progress. Contact her at jsathe@dailyprogress.com