The Piedmont Master Gardeners are co-sponsoring an appearance by poet, essayist and passionate gardener Ross Gay at this year’s Virginia Festival of the Book. The Same Page Community Read event is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday, March 25, at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. We are partnering with the Friends of JMRL, which selected his essay collection The Book of Delights (a New York Times best-seller) for the 2023 Same Page Community Read program. He will also read from his latest book of essays, Inciting Joy. As critics observe, this award-winning writer “celebrates the beauty of the natural world–his garden, the flowers peeking out of the sidewalk, the hypnotic movements of a praying mantis.”