That article does not say what Mandel JCC is.
So I looked it up. It is a Jewish Community Center. They have a book festival "Showcasing Jewish authors and /or books of Jewish content".
The author referenced in that article had intended to write a sequel to a book with Jewish themes. But because she could not travel during the pandemic to research the sequel she had planned to write, she wrote about something else. The book she wrote instead is about a theater that burned down in Richmond in 1811 and was blamed on enslaved people.
I would assume the reason the visit by this author was cancelled was because her book was not about the Jewish topic that the Jewish community center had expected when they first booked her visit.
Here is a link to what the Mandel JCC is all about, if anyone is interested:
https://pbg.jcconline.com/about/mission//