A Digression for VaBook10

Let me interrupt the usual format of this web log to point to a couple of exciting (at least from my perspective) developments.

First, the 2010 Virginia Festival of the Book is coming up next month.  From Wednesday, March 17, through Sunday, March 21, dozens of authors representing a wide range of genres will be in Charlottesville (at multiple venues including City Council chambers, various bookstores, and the Culbreth Theatre on the grounds of the University of Virginia) to discuss their books.  Examples include Karen Spears Zacharias, Bob Zellner, and Elizabeth Zelvin -- and those are just the Z's.  (A complete alphabetical listing can be found here, and listings by topic -- crime wave, family, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and publishing -- are also available.)

It will be my pleasure to be one of four guest book bloggers for the Festival.  The others are Elizabeth McCullough (Cville Words), Bethanne Patrick (The Book Studio), and John Reinhart (Biblio's Bloggins).

I am currently reading one the books whose author will be speaking at the Festival, and I hope to publish a fresh review of that book here soon.

I also hope that, during the Festival, I will be able to conduct short video interviews with some of the authors at the Virginia Festival of the Book, as I did at the National Press Club last November with Frank Aukofer, Joan Biskupic, Ann Coulter, Haynes Johnson, James Reston, Deborah Tannen, Henry Waxman, and others.

For those so inclined, there is a fan page for the 2010 Virginia Festival of the Book on Facebook, and a rather inactive Twitter feed for it, too.  (Don't forget the hash tag, #vabook.)

In other book review news, I will be hosting the Book Review Blog Carnival on March 28.  The current carnival is at Kitsch-Slapped.  The next edition is scheduled to appear on Valentine's Day (February 14) at Mysteries in Paradise.  (The 35th edition of the Book Review Blog Carnival, hosted by Home School Dad, led off with a mention of my review of Rose Marie's memoir, Hold the Roses.)

A news conference to announce some of the events and activities anticipated at the 2010 Virginia Festival of the Book was scheduled for February 10 but postponed because of the inclement weather (that is, the largest snow dump on Central Virginia in recent memory).  It has been rescheduled for February 18 and I plan to be there.

If all goes well, the next post you will find here will be a book review, old or new.