Frissell Community House

SAVE THE DATE!

The Conroy Literary Center will hold our third annual March Forth day of learning on Sunday, March 3rd, at the Frissell Community House at Penn Center on St. Helena Island, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Commemorating the anniversary of Pat Conroy’s death, March Forth will be a day-long embrace of nature, writing, social justice, and fellowship among writers and readers in the heart of Conroy’s beloved lowcountry.

March Forth’s lineup will include New York Times best-selling young adult novelist Nic Stone (author of Dear Martin); educator and civil rights leader Cleveland Sellers and his biographer Adam Parker (author of Outside Agitator); Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy contributing writers Cassandra King Conroy, Tim Conroy, Jonathan Haupt, Ellen Malphrus, Sallie Ann Robinson, and Valerie Sayers; and a guided birding walk led by master naturalists Chris Marsh and Bob Speare.

All-day admission to March Forth is $22 with four gourmet box lunch options catered by Debbi Covington available for an additional fee of $18 (with advance purchase). A full schedule of the day’s events will be posted in early February.

Website: Facebook Event Page

Registration for this event is now open. See details at: https://marchforth2019.brownpapertickets.com

Sponsors:

This event is sponsored by a generous gift from Erin and Matt Devlin and presented in partnership with Penn Center. As part of her March Forth visit, author Nic Stone will also be speaking about Dear Martin to an all-school assembly at Beaufort High School on Monday, March 4.

Schedule of Events:

10:00–11:30 a.m. – Nature walk led by master naturalists Chris Marsh and Bob Speare
Noon–1:30 p.m. – Lunch catered by Debbi Covington, Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy panel with Cassandra King Conroy, Tim Conroy, Jonathan Haupt, Ellen Malphrus, Sallie Ann Robinson, and Valerie Sayers
1:30–2:00 p.m. – book signing
2:00–3:00 p.m. – Adam Parker in conversation with Cleveland Sellers Jr., Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr.
3:00–3:30 p.m. –  book signing
3:30–4:30 p.m.  – Nic Stone keynote, Dear Martin: A Novel
4:30–5:00 p.m. – book signing

About our Presenters:

After working extensively in teen mentoring and living in Israel for a few years, Atlanta native Nic Stone returned to the U.S. to write full-time. Dear Martin, her first novel, is loosely based on a series of true events involving the shooting deaths of unarmed African American teenagers. Shaken by the various responses to these incidents—and to the pro-justice movement that sprang up as a result—Stone began the project in an attempt to examine current affairs through the lens of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings.

Cassandra King Conroy is the award-winning author of five novels, a book of nonfiction, numerous short stories and magazine articles, most recently in Coastal Living and Southern Living. Honored as a 2017 Alabama Humanities Foundation Fellow, Conroy is working on a memoir about life with her late husband, Pat Conroy.

Tim Conroy is a former special education teacher and school administrator. He is the author of the debut poetry collection Theologies of Terrain.

Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center and the co-editor (with novelist Nicole Seitz) of Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy.

Ellen Malphrus is the writer in residence at the University of South Carolina Beaufort where she teaches literature and creative writing. She is the author of the novel Untying the Moon.

Charleston Post & Courier journalist Adam Parker is a long-time student of the civil rights movement and race in America, and he has written extensively about the African American experience. Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr. is his first book.

One of Pat Conroy’s Daufuskie Island students, Sallie Ann Robinson is a celebrity chef, tour guide, author of two cookbooks, and coauthor of Daufuskie Island in the Images of America series. She appears as Ethel in Conroy’s memoir The Water Is Wide.

The William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, Valerie Sayers is the author of six novels, most recently The Powers, a two-time winner of the Pushcart Prize, and a 2018 inductee in the South Carolina Academy of Authors, our state’s literary hall of fame. She was a Beaufort High School student of Pat Conroy’s.

Cleveland Sellers Jr. is an educator and veteran civil rights activist. He was the only person convicted and jailed for events during the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre, a civil rights protest in which three students were killed by state troopers. Sellers received a full pardon 25 years later. The former director of the African American Studies Program at the University of South Carolina, Sellers served as president of Voorhees College from 2008 to 2015.