The Virginia Festival of the Book, a program of Virginia Humanities, has announced two headlining speakers for the upcoming hybrid festival, which will be held on March 16-20.

Traci Chee’s “We Are Not Free,” a National Book Award finalist book for young readers, is the 2022 Jefferson-Madison Regional Library Same Page Community Read selection.

The 2022 festival will feature Chee in two public events and one school event, discussing the Same Page title as well as her new release, “A Thousand Steps Into Night,” a Japanese-influenced fantasy brimming with demons, adventure, and plans gone awry.

Dr. Imani Perry will be the 2022 Carol Troxell Reader with her new book, “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.” An Alabama native, Perry returns to the region of her upbringing in this book, crafting a narrative of the real people and places that make up what we abstractly consider the South, ultimately revealing the deep-seated truths and definitions they hold of America’s past and present, a release stated.

As the 2022 Carol Troxell Reader, Perry will be featured in public programming at the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book.

“We are thrilled to announce Dr. Imani Perry as our 2022 Carol Troxell Reader and to offer this additional honor in recognition of the breadth and importance of her work. As a scholar of law, literary and cultural studies, and an author of creative nonfiction, her books have reached academic and public audiences and received numerous prestigious awards. We look forward to hearing her read from South to America in March. I think Carol would be excited by this choice,” said Virginia Festival of the Book director Jane Kulow.

Learn more about the Same Page Community Read and Carol Troxell Reader selections at VaBook.org/blog. The full schedule of 2022 festival programming will be announced on Jan. 31. All virtual events and the majority of in-person events will be free to attend and open to the public. Festival COVID protocols for in-person events are available at VaBook.org/policies.

Virginia Humanities is the state humanities council, headquartered in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia. To learn more, visit VirginiaHumanities.org.