Fall for the Book’s 2023 Mini Fest was such a success that they’re making it an annual tradition.
On Feb. 22, will host seven authors and five events that span the genre gambit on AV’s Fairfax Campus. Featuring writers Chris Klimas, Michelle Brafman, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Kim Coleman Foote, Itoro Bassey, and Hanna ʲäԱ, Mini Fest will run from 10:30 a.m. - 4:15 p.m. in Fenwick Library, Room 2001. Then, in the evening, Fall for the Book welcomes headliner, Marlon James, in Harris Theater at 7 p.m. The events are free and open to the public, but reserving free tickets for Marlon James is encouraged.
At 10:30 a.m., web developer and game designer Chris Klimas will talk about the roots of the interactive text-based storytelling tool Twine, and the potentials of nonlinear and multilinear storytelling in game design, fiction, poetry, and more. In 2009, Klimas created Twine and continues to lead the project.
At noon, Michelle Brafman will discuss her novel about addiction, secrets, and a cultish Northern Virginia swim team, Swimming with Ghosts. When the freak 2012 derecho storm knocks out power for days, old ghosts and simmering tensions boil over between two best friends and swim moms. Sponsored by Mason’s Judaic Studies Program.
At 1:30 p.m., three writers will discuss how displacement, migration, and change connect with their identity. Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, editor of and contributor to Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices, will be joined by contributor Kim Coleman Foote, author of Coleman Hill: A Novel, a kaleidoscopic novel set during the early days of America’s Great Migration, and Itoro Bassey, author of the novel Faith, about a first-generation Nigerian American woman who resettles in Nigeria. Sponsored by the .
Wrapping up the daytime events at 3 p.m., Hanna ʲäԱ will talk about her novel, The End of Drum-Time, which paints a picture of a world in a remote Scandinavian village, circa 1850, as the son of a reindeer herder falls in love with the daughter of a Lutheran minister. Despite a clash of their cultural, religious, and political backgrounds, the lovers find themselves bound together as they follow the herders on their annual migration north. The End of Drum-Time was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Finally, at 7 p.m., Marlon James, a finalist for the National Book Award for Black Leopard, Red Wolf, will discuss the second installment, Moon Witch, Spider King, which flips the story on its head, retelling it from the Moon Witch’s perspective. Sponsored by the George Mason Friends. .
Fall for the Book events, which continue into March with “Thrillers, Killers, and Wine Chillers” and “Memorial Days: Viet Nam Stories,” are free and open to the public, thanks to the generous support of sponsors including the Mason, Fairfax County Public Library, the Fairfax Library Foundation, and the City of Fairfax. For the full schedule of events, visit .