Pat Conroy Literary Center

An Evening with Terah Shelton Harris
2023-10-06 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Friday October 6, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Registration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.
Venue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
“A natural pick for book clubs―there is plenty to discuss in this thought-provoking, moving story of forgiveness, unexpected connection, and the myriad ways people protect those they love.”―Booklist
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with novelist Terah Shelton Harris, author of One Summer in Savannah, on Friday, October 6, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.). Books will be available for sale and signing in partnership with Beaufort Bookstore. Please register in advance at 843-379-7025.
About One Summer in Savannah
It’s been eight years since Sara Lancaster left her home in Savannah, Georgia. Eight years since her daughter, Alana, came into this world, following a terrifying sexual assault that left deep emotional wounds Sara would do anything to forget. But when Sara’s father falls ill, she’s forced to return home and face the ghosts of her past.
While caring for her father and running his bookstore, Sara is desperate to protect her curious, outgoing, genius daughter from the Wylers, the family of the man who assaulted her. Sara thinks she can succeed―her attacker is in prison, his identical twin brother, Jacob, left town years ago, and their mother are all unaware Alana exists. But she soon learns that Jacob has also just returned to Savannah to piece together the fragments of his once-great family. And when their two worlds collide―with the type of force Sara explores in her poetry and Jacob in his astrophysics―they are drawn together in unexpected ways.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terah Shelton Harris is a collection development librarian based in Alabama and a freelance writer. She has been published in Women’s Health, Natural Solutions, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Backpacker, Draft, and Women’s Adventure.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

The Seventh Annual Lowcountry Book Club Convention
2023-09-30 09:00 - 15:45 | Culinary Institute of the South, 1 Venture Dr, Bluffton, SC, 29910, United States
When: Saturday, September 30, 2023 9:00 am – 3:45 pm EDT
Where: Culinary Institute of the South | 1 Venture Dr, Bluffton, SC 29910
Registration: Eventbrite
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host the 7th annual Lowcountry Book Club Convention on Saturday, September 30, at the Culinary Institute of the South at the Technical College of the Lowcountry in Bluffton, SC. Ideal for book club members, those interested in joining a book club, or anyone who simply loves the joy of reading, the Lowcountry Book Club Convention is presented in partnership with NeverMore Books and the Technical College of the Lowcountry, and made possible by the generous support of the Pulpwood Queens Books Club, the largest book club in the U.S.
This year’s presenters include musician, educator, and bestselling novelist Brendan Slocumb, author of The Violin Conspiracy (A Good Morning America Book Club Selection) and Symphony of Secrets; master entertainer and chef Johnathon Scott Barrett, author of Cook & Celebrate: A Collection of Southern Holiday & Party Culinary Traditions; and teenage entrepreneur Sidney Keys III, creator of the Books N Bros Book Club (featured in Forbes Magazine). The Convention will begin this year with a panel discussion highlighting five lowcountry novelists with new or recently released books: Donna Keel Armer (The Red Starfish), Laura Elizabeth (All Is Now Lost), Nancy Ritter (Slack Tide), Lynn Seldon (Carolina’s Ring), and John Warley (Jury of One).
A gourmet box lunch will be provided by Catering by Debbi Covington. Books by presenting authors will be available for sale and signing. The Culinary Institute of the South will also be offering guided tours of their facility for the convention attendees. The registration fee includes all-day access to all author events and a tour.
As a prologue to Saturday’s in-person events, on Friday, September 23, at 6:00 p.m., the Conroy Center will also host a special live-streamed appearance by podcaster and publisher Zibby Owens, creator of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books and author of Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, in conversation with Lauren Marino, editorial director of Hachette Books and author of Bookish Broads: Women Who Wrote Themselves into History. This free event will be held on Zoom and also live-streamed on the Conroy Center’s Facebook page.
Registration for ticketed events through the Conroy Center’s Eventbrite page: Eventbrite
Website: Facebook Event Page
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Saturday, September 30
9:00-9:30 a.m. Check-in Begins
9:30-10:30 a.m. Lowcountry Novelists Panel Discussion, featuring Donna Keel Armer (The Red Starfish), Laura Elizabeth (All Is Now Lost), Nancy Ritter (Slack Tide), Lynn Seldon (Carolina’s Ring), and John Warley (Jury of One), moderated by Pat Conroy Literary Center executive director Jonathan Haupt
10:30 a.m.-11:00 p.m. Book signing break
11:00-12:00 p.m. As featured in the Good Morning America Book Club — musician, educator, and novelist Brendan Slocumb (The Violin Conspiracy and Symphony of Secrets) in conversation with Jonathan Haupt
12:00-12:45 p.m. Book signing break & lunch: Gourmet box lunches by Catering by Debbi Covington. (Register by September 18 for lunch)
12:45-1:45 p.m. Master entertainer and chef Johnathon Scott Barrett, (Cook & Celebrate: A Collection of Southern Holiday & Party Culinary Traditions) in conversation with Mary Martha Greene (The Cheese Biscuit Queen Tells All)
1:45-2:15 p.m. Book signing break
2:15-3:15 p.m. As featured in Forbes Magazine — Sidney Keys III, author of Books N Bros and founder of the Books N Bros book club, in conversation with local students.
3:15-3:45 p.m. Final book signing break and tour of the Culinary Institute of the South.
About the Featured Authors
BRENDAN SLOCUMB
Brendan Slocumb was raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in music education, concentrations on Violin and Viola. For the past two decades, he has been a public and private school music educator from kindergarten through twelfth grade, teaching general music, orchestra, and guitar ensembles. His students were often chosen for district and regional orchestras.
In 2005, Brendan was named Teacher of the Year for Robert E. Lee High School; he has been named to Who’s Who of American teachers, and is a Nobel Teacher of distinction. Brendan also serves as an educational consultant for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He is the author of two novels: The Violin Conspiracy (a selection of the Good Morning America Book Club) and the recently released Symphony of Secrets. www.brendanslocumb.com
JOHNATHON SCOTT BARRETT
Johnathon Scott Barrett is a seventh-generation Georgian, and grew up amongst a family that placed high value on fresh, farm-to-table food. He held onto those roots and became a renowned cook and host in his home state. A nonprofit executive, he is also an avid reader, fisherman, and gardener. His cookbooks include Cook & Celebrate, Rise & Shine, and Cook & Tell. www.johnathonbarrett.com

SIDNEY KEYS III
Sidney Keys III is a rising teen entrepreneur. At the young age of 10, he decided to take his love for reading to the next level and create Books N Bros, a book club to empower boys while advocating for African American literacy. Keys offers kids a place to be mentored by their “Big Bros” and connect over a shared love for reading and the “Cool Bros Read” mantra.
Featured in Forbes Magazine, he has made appearances on Cartoon Network, Good Morning America, Today with Hoda and Jenna, CNN, MARVEL Hero Project on Disney+, and in Oprah’s O magazine and the Huffington Post. Keys lives in Atlanta, GA. www.booksnbros.com
About the Local Authors
DONNA KEEL ARMER
Donna Keel Armer is the author of the travel memoir Solo in Salento (recently translated into Italian) and the debut novel The Red Starfish. She has published numerous articles and photographs on travel, food, human interest, and home and garden in South Carolina magazines. She also teamed up with the Sons of Italy in Columbia, SC, to produce Bella Cucina Italiana, a cookbook featuring her photography. She and her husband Ray live in Beaufort where she volunteers with the Pat Conroy Literary Center and Hunting Island State Park. https://donnaarmer.com.

LAURA ELIZABETH
Laura Elizabeth enjoys a well-established career in business as well as a rich family life that, many years ago, took her to Daufuskie Island for the first time. Following her years of family experiences on the island, Laura imagined Mongin Island as the home for her new cozy series, The Island Mysteries, beginning with the newly released All Is Now Lost. www.theislandmysteries.com.

NANCY RITTER
The author of Slack Tide, Nancy Ritter has worked as a paralegal, a reporter, and an editor. She has received numerous awards for her writing, culminating in a Service to America Medal for her work at the U.S. Department of Justice on the nation’s missing persons crisis, where she first learned about “ambiguous loss,” an issue she explores in her debut novel. Ritter lives and writes in Beaufort, where she is a volunteer for the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

LYNN SELDON
Graduate of Virginia Military Institute and Army veteran Lynn Seldon is a longtime writer with more than 500 magazine and newspaper credits, including USA Today, The Atlanta Journal- Constitution, TrailBlazer, airline inflights, several AAA publications, and dozens more. He is the author or coauthor of six nonfiction books, and the novels, Virginia’s Ring and Carolina’s Ring. He lives in Beaufort with fellow writer and wife Cele Seldon. www.seldonink.com

JOHN WARLEY
John Warley is the award-winning author of seven books. His bestselling novel, A Southern Girl, was praised by Pat Conroy as “stylish as a novel by John Irving and as tightly written as one by John Grisham.” His history of his undergraduate alma mater, Stand Forever, Yielding Never: The Citadel in the 21st Century, led to his selection to write both the inscription for the college’s war memorial and “The Citadel at War,” a narrative history of the wars and conflicts in which Citadel alumni have made the ultimate sacrifice. NPR selected his essay “Lingering at the Doors” for publication in This I Believe on Fatherhood. A graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, he drew on decades of experience practicing law in writing Jury of One, his most recent novel. Warley lives in Beaufort. www.johnwarley.com.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

Pat Conroy Book Club: Beach Music
2023-09-28 18:30 - 19:30 | The Rhett House Inn, 1009 Craven St., Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Thursday September 28, 2023 – 6:30-7:30 PM EDT
Price: $10
Registration: Register at Eventbrite | Limited to 20 participants
Venue: The Rhett House Inn | 1009 Craven St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center and the award-winning Rhett House Inn will host a monthly book club discussion of Pat Conroy’s dozen books in order of publication, moderated by Charlene Spearen and Jonathan Haupt. Book discussions will be held on fourth Thursdays beginning at 6:30 p.m. Limited to 20 participants each month. $10/person. Advance registration required. Participants are expected to read the books and to come prepared to discuss them.
Discussions will be held at The Rhett House Inn (1009 Craven St., Beaufort)
SCHEDULE

September 28: Beach Music (1995)
October 26 (Pat Conroy’s birthday): My Losing Season (2002)
November 30 (5th Thursday due to Thanksgiving): The Pat Conroy Cookbook (2004)

Register at Eventbrite
ABOUT OUR DISCUSSION LEADERS
Dr. Charlene Monahan Spearen received her MFA degree in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of South Carolina. She is currently serving as the Public Relations and Special Projects Coordinator for Penn Center after a successful career in academia at Allen University. She served as the Program Coordinator for the University of South Carolina’s Arts Institute and was the Assistant Director for the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. In addition to her work throughout the Carolinas, Spearen has been a featured reader and Creative Writing instructor and scholar in County Monaghan and County Mayo, Ireland. She has published a full-length collection of poems titled A Book of Exquisite Disasters. Her poems have appeared in journals and publications throughout the United States.
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Conroy Center and the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, where he created the Story River Books fiction imprint with Pat Conroy, named by Garden & Gun magazine as one of “the top ten things to love about the South.” Haupt’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle, Savannah Morning News’ Beacon magazine, Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers Magazine’s Suite T blog. He is co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, the recipient of seventeen book awards. He serves on the boards of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries and the South Carolina Academy of Authors. In 2020, Haupt was recognized with the Doug Marlette Literacy Leadership Award presented by the Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the U.S.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

Panel Discussion - All Night, All Day: Life, Death & Angels
2023-09-21 17:00 - 18:30 | Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Thursday, September 21, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Free Registration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.
Venue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host a panel discussion and book signing for the anthology All Night, All Day: Life, Death & Angels on Thursday, September 21, at 5:00 p.m. Free and open to the public, this event will be held at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). Books will be available for sale and signing. Seating is limited; please call 843-379-7025 to reserve in advance.
The panel discussion will include editor Susan Cushman and contributing writers Cassandra King, Wendy Reed, and Nancy Dorman-Hickson.
About All Night, All Day: Life, Death & Angels
“All Night, All Day is an inspirational collection of personal essays, stories, and poems by outstanding women authors who write about the appearance of the divine in their lives. Some of these angels come to save a life or change a flat tire. Some appear to warn people, tell them what to do, suggest more vegetables and maybe better shoes… In this stunning anthology which explores so many heartwarming brushes with celestial beings, all these angels are messengers come to assure us we are not alone, and we are loved.”—Margaret McMullan, award-winning author of Where the Angels Lived
There is something mystical about holding the hand of a person who is “crossing over.” It can be heartbreaking, of course, but also very holy and beautiful. Some of the pieces in this collection share the experience of personal loss when a loved one dies. Often the presence of an angel or another mystical experience is shared. But not only in death—there are also stories here of the way the mystical world interacts with us in daily life. And not only angels, but also mothers, fathers, sisters, grandfathers, friends, and even a homeless man and a dog.
ABOUT THE EDITOR AND AUTHORS
This is Susan Cushman’s fourth anthology to edit. She is also the author of two novels, two memoirs, and a short story collection. Pat Conroy and Cassandra King are her two favorite authors and inspired her to write. Enough said.

Cassandra King (Conroy) is the author of five best-selling novels and two nonfiction books. Her latest book, Tell Me a Story, a memoir about life with her late husband Pat Conroy, was named SIBA’s 2020 non-fiction Book of the Year. A conversation with Cassandra at her home in 2018 about angels—and particularly about the one that visited Pat as he was dying—was the inspiration for this book.

Wendy Reed is an Emmy-winning writer and producer, whose work include documentaries and the long-running series Bookmark with Don Noble and Discovering Alabama. She is the author of An Accidental Memoir: How I Killed Someone and Other Stories and the co-editor of All Out of Faith and Circling Faith: Southern Women on Spirituality.

After almost twenty years as a features editor at Southern Living magazine, Nancy Dorman-Hickson now freelances in Birmingham, Alabama. She co-authored Diplomacy and Diamonds, the best-selling memoir of Joanne King Herring who was portrayed by Julia Roberts in the movie Charlie Wilson’s War. She is working on a memoir which draws from her rural childhood in the 1960s and 1970s in Mississippi.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

An Evening with Susan Beckham Zurenda
2023-09-19 17:00 - 18:30 | Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Location: Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen Street) | please call The Center to reserve your seat: 843-379-7025
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center and NeverMore Books will host an evening with novelist Susan Beckham Zurenda, author of The Girl from the Red Rose Motel, on September 19, at 5:00 p.m. Zurenda will be joined in conversation by bestselling author Cassandra King, author of Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy. Free and open to the public, this special event will be held at The Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen Street, Beaufort). Books will be available for sale and signing. Seating is limited; please call 843-379-7025 to reserve in advance.
Website: Facebook Event Page
ABOUT The Girl from the Red Rose Motel
Impoverished high school junior Hazel Smalls and privileged senior Sterling Lovell would never ordinarily meet. But when both are punished with in-school suspension, Sterling finds himself drawn to the gorgeous, studious girl seated nearby, and an unlikely relationship begins. Set in 2012 South Carolina, the novel interlaces the stories of Hazel, living with her homeless family in the rundown Red Rose Motel; Sterling, yearning to break free from the expectations of his wealthy parents; and recently widowed Angela Wilmore, their stern but compassionate English teacher.
Hazel hides her homelessness from Sterling until he discovers her cleaning the motel’s office one morning when he goes with his slumlord father to unfreeze the motel’s pipes. With her secret revealed, their relationship deepens. Angela, who has her own struggles in a budding romance with the divorced principal, offers Hazel the support her family can’t provide. Navigating between privilege and poverty, vulnerability and strength, all three must confront what they need from themselves and each other as Hazel gains the courage to oppose boundaries and make a bold, life-changing decision at novel’s end. Gripping and richly drawn, The Girl from the Red Rose Motel explores the complex bonds between adults and teenagers and the power of the families we both inherit and create.
Inspired by the author’s experiences teaching in a South Carolina high school, the novel is also an unflinching, authentic look at the challenges faced by America’s public school teachers and the struggles of the thousands of homeless children in motels who live, precariously and almost invisibly, amid the nation’s most affluent communities.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Zurenda taught English for 33 years on the college level and at the high school level to AP students. Her debut novel, Bells for Eli (Mercer University Press, March 2020; paperback edition March 2021), has been selected the Gold Medal (first place) winner for Best First Book—Fiction in the 2021 IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards), a Foreword Indie Book Award finalist, a Winter 2020 Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, a 2020 Notable Indie on Shelf Unbound, a 2020 finalist for American Book Fest Best Book Awards, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for 2021.
She has won numerous regional awards for her short fiction. She lives in Spartanburg, SC.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

September 2023 Open Mic Night
2023-09-14 18:00 - 19:30 | Online – Facebook Live
Our monthly virtual Open Mic Night is presented in partnership between the Pat Conroy Literary Center and the South Carolina Writers Association. Our featured writer for September is Yvette R. Murray, author of the poetry collection Hush, Puppy. Join us live on the Conroy Center’s Facebook page for readings by a pantheon of participating writers from in and beyond our South Carolina lowcountry.
When: Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 6 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Price: Free · Duration: 1 hr 30 min
Where: Facebook Live
Interested in reading as part of Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org
We want to build our community of writers and an appreciation for the art and talent of new, emerging, and long-time writers. Thank you for supporting this partnership!
Event Facebook Page
About our featured writer:
Yvette R. Murray is an award-winning poet and writer. She has been published in Chestnut Review, Emrys Journal, Litmosphere, A Gathering Together, and others. She is the 2022 Susan Laughter Meyers Poetry Fellow, a 2021 Best New Poet selection, a Watering Hole Fellow, and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She is a board member of the South Carolina Writer’s Association and the Poetry Society of South Carolina, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. @MissYvettewrites.
“Yvette Murray offers a collection that is so shrimp and grits, so Gullah, so Battery, so Charleston. She invites us to taste, feel, and breathe her Charleston. She exercises her poetry muscles with traditional forms and lifts voices that Carolinians have heard all their lives. Let her be your tour guide through the pain and the joy. How grateful we are to share in her witness.”–Len Lawson, author of Chime and co-editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

An Evening with T. M. Brown, author of The Last Laird of Sapelo, in conversation with Bren McClain
2023-09-12 17:00 - 18:30 | Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Tuesday September 12, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Registration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.
Venue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
“A heart-wrenching and beautiful story of a man and his family brought to its knees by the Civil War. . . . historical fiction at its finest.”–Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times Best-Selling Author of The Secret Book of Flora Lea
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with novelist T.M. Brown, author of The Last Laird of Sapelo, in conversation with Willie Morris Award-winning novelist Bren McClain. This free event will be held on Tuesday, September 12, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.). Books will be available for sale and signing. Please register in advance at 843-379-7025.
About The Last Laird of Sapelo
The Last Laird of Sapelo is based on the tragic story of Randolph Spalding, the youngest son of Georgia’s most well-known antebellum-era coastal planter and influential political figure, Thomas Spalding. Following his father’s death in 1851, Randolph parlays his father’s fame and gifted landholdings on Sapelo Island, hobnobbing from Charleston to Savannah to Milledgeville and ultimately failing to thwart Georgia’s decision to follow South Carolina into secession by early 1861.
Within weeks after the assault on Fort Sumter, Lincoln’s naval blockade threatens the entire southern coast. Colonel Randolph Spalding, now a reluctant commander of militia, faces a storm of life-altering events in the months that follow, imperiling his family’s legacy, livelihood, and lands. He ultimately must decide between supposed justice and saving the life of a slave who exacted revenge for the murder and rape of two children on Sapelo Island.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author T. M. Brown went back to school after a thirty-year sales and marketing career; his lifelong love for history, teaching, and coaching landed him in the classroom until he retired in 2014. He took up writing novels and has published four award-winning Southern novels.
He is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club, Southeastern Writers Association, Broadleaf Writers Association, American Christian Fiction Writers, and founding president of Hometown Novel Writers Association, Inc., in Newnan, Georgia.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

Tuesday Talk: Patrick Dean, Author of Nature's Messenger
2023-09-12 15:00 - 16:00 | Port Royal Sound Maritime Center, 310 Okatie Hwy, Okatie, SC, 29909, United States
Register: Click the “Book a Program button on the Port Royal Sound Foundation website
Tuesday, September 12, 3:00-4:00 p.m. EDT
Cost: $10
Venue: Port Royal Sound Foundation Maritime Center | 310 Okatie Hwy, Okatie, SC
As part of their Tuesday Talks series, the Port Royal Sound Foundation Maritime Center, in partnership with the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, will host an afternoon lecture by Patrick Dean, author of the recently published book Nature’s Messenger: Mark Catesby and His Adventures in a New World. The program will be held at the Maritime Center’s education classroom, 310 Okatie Hwy, Okatie, on Tuesday, September 12, at 3:00 p.m. $10/person. Books will be available for sale and signing.
Website: Facebook Event Page
About Nature’s Messenger
“In this enlightening biography, nature writer Dean traces the life of British naturalist Mark Catesby (1683–1749), whose The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands was among the first European accounts of the flora and fauna of the Americas and influenced John James Audubon. An informative account of an important if lesser-known naturalist.” — Publishers Weekly
In 1722, Mark Catesby stepped ashore in Charles Town in the Carolina colony. Over the next four years, this young naturalist made history as he explored deep into America’s natural wonders, collecting and drawing plants and animals which had never been seen back in the Old World. Nine years later Catesby produced his magnificent and groundbreaking book, The Natural History of Carolina, the first-ever illustrated account of American flora and fauna.
In Nature’s Messenger, acclaimed writer Patrick Dean follows Catesby from his youth as a landed gentleman in rural England to his early work as a naturalist and his adventurous travels. A pioneer in many ways, Catesby’s careful attention to the knowledge of non-Europeans in America—the enslaved Africans and Native Americans who had their own sources of food and medicine from nature—set him apart from others of his time.
Nature’s Messenger takes us from the rice plantations of the Carolina Lowcountry to the bustling coffeehouses of 18th-century England, from the sun-drenched islands of the Bahamas to the austere meeting-rooms of London’s Royal Society, then presided over by Isaac Newton. It was a time of discovery, of intellectual ferment, and of the rise of the British Empire. And there on history’s leading edge, recording the extraordinary and often violent mingling of cultures as well as of nature, was Mark Catesby.
Intensively researched and thrillingly told, Nature’s Messenger will thrill fans of exploration and early American history as well as appealing to birdwatchers, botanists, and anyone fascinated by the natural world.
About the author:
Patrick Dean writes on the outdoors and the environment. He has worked as a teacher, a political media director, and is presently the executive director of a rail-trail nonprofit.
An avid trail-runner, paddler, and mountain-biker, he lives with his wife and dogs on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, and is the author of A Window to Heaven, about the summit of Denali.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

Pat Conroy Book Club: The Prince of Tides
2023-08-24 18:30 - 19:30 | The Rhett House Inn, 1009 Craven St., Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Thursday August 24, 2023 – 6:30-7:30 PM EDT
Price: $10
Registration: Register at Eventbrite | Limited to 20 participants
Venue: The Rhett House Inn | 1009 Craven St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center and the award-winning Rhett House Inn will host a monthly book club discussion of Pat Conroy’s dozen books in order of publication, moderated by Charlene Spearen and Jonathan Haupt. Book discussions will be held on fourth Thursdays beginning at 6:30 p.m. Limited to 20 participants each month. $10/person. Advance registration required. Participants are expected to read the books and to come prepared to discuss them.
Discussions will be held at The Rhett House Inn (1009 Craven St., Beaufort)
SCHEDULE

August 24: The Prince of Tides (1986)
September 28: Beach Music (1995)
October 26 (Pat Conroy’s birthday): My Losing Season (2002)
November 30 (5th Thursday due to Thanksgiving): The Pat Conroy Cookbook (2004)

Register at Eventbrite
ABOUT OUR DISCUSSION LEADERS
Dr. Charlene Monahan Spearen received her MFA degree in Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of South Carolina. She is currently serving as the Public Relations and Special Projects Coordinator for Penn Center after a successful career in academia at Allen University. She served as the Program Coordinator for the University of South Carolina’s Arts Institute and was the Assistant Director for the South Carolina Poetry Initiative. In addition to her work throughout the Carolinas, Spearen has been a featured reader and Creative Writing instructor and scholar in County Monaghan and County Mayo, Ireland. She has published a full-length collection of poems titled A Book of Exquisite Disasters. Her poems have appeared in journals and publications throughout the United States.
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Conroy Center and the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, where he created the Story River Books fiction imprint with Pat Conroy, named by Garden & Gun magazine as one of “the top ten things to love about the South.” Haupt’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle, Savannah Morning News’ Beacon magazine, Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers Magazine’s Suite T blog. He is co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, the recipient of seventeen book awards. He serves on the boards of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries and the South Carolina Academy of Authors. In 2020, Haupt was recognized with the Doug Marlette Literacy Leadership Award presented by the Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the U.S.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

An Evening with Amy Paige Condon
2023-08-22 17:00 - 18:30 | Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Tuesday August 22, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Registration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.
Venue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St., Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with Amy Paige Condon, author of A Nervous Man Shouldn’t Be Here in the First Place: The Life of Bill Baggs, newly released in paperback. This free event will be held on Tuesday, August 22, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). Books will be available for sale and signing. Please call to reserve your seat in advance: 843-379-7025.
About A Nervous Man Shouldn’t Be Here in the First Place
“This is not a simple life, my friend, and there are no simple answers.” The late editor of the late Miami News, Bill Baggs, stamped these words on plain white postcards and sent them to readers who sent him hate mail―a frequent occurrence, as Baggs, a white editor of a prominent southern newspaper, championed unpopular ideas in his front-page columns, such as protecting the environment, desegregating public schools, and peace in Vietnam.
Under his leadership, the Miami News earned three Pulitzer Prizes. For his stances, Baggs earned a bullet hole through his office window, police officers stationed outside his home, and a used Mercedes outfitted with a remote starter so that if it had been rigged with a bomb, it would blow up before he opened the door. Despite his causes and accomplishments, when Baggs died of pneumonia in 1969 at the age of forty-five, his story nearly died with him, and that would have been a travesty because Baggs still has so much to teach us about how to find the answers to those not-so-simple questions, like how to live in peace with one another?
In this first biography of this influential editor, Amy Paige Condon retraces how an orphaned boy from rural Colquitt, Georgia, bore witness and impacted some of the twentieth century’s most earth-shifting events: World War II, the civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War. With keen intellect and sparkling wit, Baggs seemed to be in the right place at the right time. From bombardier to reporter then accidental diplomat, Baggs used his daily column as a bully pulpit for social justice and wielded his pen like a scalpel to reveal the truth.
“The marquee proclaiming the most celebrated journalists of the twentieth century probably wouldn’t include Bill Baggs. But ask everyone listed on the marquee who’s missing. By unanimous consent, they’d say Bill Baggs, the daring, fearless, ‘rapscallion’ editor of the Miami News. Why? Because as Amy Paige Condon so masterfully reveals, Baggs led them on race, Vietnam, the environment, historic preservation, land conservation, and the liberal conversation we’re still having today. This is a necessary resurrection of a departed journalist worth celebrating.”–Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
“When a book keeps you riveted into the wee hours of the morning, and then brings tears to your eyes when it ends, you can be pretty sure it’s a winner.”–Carol McCabe Booker, editor of Alone Atop the Hill
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amy Paige Condon is the founder of the Refinery Writing Studio and the associate editor of Beacon, a quarterly news magazine published by the Savannah Morning News. She is the coauthor of Wiley’s Championship BBQ Cookbook and The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

August 2023 Open Mic Night
2023-08-10 18:00 - 19:30 | Sandies, 711 Bladen St., Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
In partnership with the South Carolina Writers Association and the Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce, the Conroy Center’s monthly Open Mic Night will be held at Sandies (711 Bladen St.) on Thursday, August 10, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured writer is Ed Madden, past Poet Laureate of Columbia and author of the newly published collection A Pooka in Arkansas.
When: Thursday, August 10, 2023 at 6 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Price: Free · Duration: 1 hr 30 min
Where: Sandies (711 Bladen St.)
Interested in reading as part of Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org
We want to build our community of writers and an appreciation for the art and talent of new, emerging, and long-time writers. Thank you for supporting this partnership!
Event Facebook Page
About our featured writer:
Ed Madden is the author of four other books and four chapbooks of poetry, most recently Ark, about his father’s last months in hospice care, and So they can sing, which won the 2016 Robin Becker Chapbook Prize.
He is a professor of English and the former director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches Irish literature, queer studies, and creative writing. From 2015 through 2022, Ed has served as the poet laureate for the City of Columbia, SC. He is recipient of an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship and artist residencies at the Hambidge Center in Georgia and the Instituto Sacatar in Itaparica, Brazil.
“This book redeems the curse of where and what we are born into by conjuring spells. Bestial. Animistic. The poet strutting around like a mythic centaur, or if you like, a domestic ass. This book flies in the face of making the rough places plain and the crooked straight. You won’t have to have grown up queer in the deep rural South to be touched by the lyrical antics that go on here, this alternative gospel spreading its haunches till every knee bow, every tongue confess, this chorus of Hallelujah inflected/infected by its own down and dirty twang.”—Timothy Liu

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

An Evening with USA Today Bestselling Author Leonard Goldberg
2023-08-09 17:00 - 18:30 | NeverMore Books, 910 Port Republic St, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Wednesday August 9, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Registration: Call the bookstore to reserve your seat: 843-812-9460
Location: Nevermore Books | 910 Port Republic St, Beaufort
“A testament to the power of deductive reasoning…. Goldberg brings his characters vibrantly to life… a worthy successor to Conan Doyle’s original.”―Charleston Post and Courier
NeverMore Books and the Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with USA Today bestselling mystery novelist Leonard Goldberg, author of The Wayward Prince (Book 7 in the Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Series), in conversation with Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt. This free event will be held on Wednesday, August 9, at 5:00 p.m., at 910 Port Republic St, Beaufort. Books will be available for sale and signing. Call the bookstore to reserve your seat: 843-812-9460
Website: Facebook Event Page
ABOUT The Wayward Prince
During the height of the Great War, playboy Prince Harry, the third in line to the British throne, vanishes in thin air while horseback riding in Hyde Park. When his absence continues on for days, the royal family grows concerned and summons Scotland Yard, who can only recover scant, unrevealing clues. The concern deepens when MI5 decodes a recent message from German spies in London which speaks of a captured asset that will bring great embarrassment to the Crown. There is a strong belief within the Intelligence agency that plans are underway to transport the captive prince to Berlin without delay. Despite an intensive search, no trace of the royal can be detected.
With Scotland Yard and MI5 baffled, Joanna Holmes, daughter of the famed British detective, and the senior and younger Dr. Watsons are called in, and they soon find themselves entangled in a web of abortion, murder, treason, and spies, all of which is seemingly being orchestrated by an arch-enemy of the long-dead Sherlock Holmes. In their race to rescue Prince Harry, it becomes clear that the mastermind behind the maze of crimes has a singular motive in mind. He desires overdue revenge in the form of Joanna’s death.
“An appealing installment for franchise fans and newcomers alike.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“Goldberg amply demonstrates once again just how compelling a figure Joanna Holmes has become. Simply put, this series is one of the best continuations of the Sherlock mythos that one could hope for.”―Mystery Scene
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leonard Goldberg is the USA Today bestselling author of the Joanna Blalock medical thrillers. His novels have been translated into a dozen languages and were selections of the Book of the Month Club, French and Czech book clubs, and The Mystery Guild. They were featured as People’s “Page-Turner of the Week” and at the International Book Fair. After a long career affiliated with the UCLA Medical Center as a Clinical Professor of Medicine, he now lives on an island off the coast of Charleston, SC.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, a frequent guest book reviewer for the Charleston Post and Courier, and co-editor of Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, winner of 17 book awards.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.

Children's Book Fair 2023
2023-08-08 10:00 - 14:00 | Port Royal Sound Foundation Weezie Educational Pavilion, 310 Okatie Hwy, Okatie, 29909
Tuesday August 8, 2023 – 10 am – 2 pm EDT
Price: Free · Duration: 4 hrs
Location: Port Royal Sound Foundation Weezie Educational Pavilion | 130 Okatie Hwy, Okatie, SC 29909
Website: Facebook Event Page
“A gorgeous book that will touch every child’s longing to connect with someone ‘out there’ who is like them.” Is how School Library Journal praised Indigo Dreaming, the newest picture book from award-winning children’s author Dinah Johnson. Indigo Dreaming is a meditation on place, wonder, and connectedness as experienced by two young girls on opposite sides of the Atlanta Ocean.
Dinah Johnson will be the special guest author at the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s annual Children’s Book Fair, to be held on Tuesday, August 8, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Port Royal Sound Foundation Weezie Educational Pavilion (130 Okatie Hwy, Okatie). Presented in partnership between the nonprofit Conroy Center, the Port Royal Sound Foundation, the Storybook Shoppe children’s bookstore, and DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, this special event is free and open to the public.
Johnson will give a reading from Indigo Dreaming at 11:00 a.m. Student volunteers from DAYLO will be hosting a Teddy Bear Picnic read-aloud throughout the event.
Other participating authors and artists in the Children’s Book Fair are Patricia Bee, author of Try’umsee’s Wings; Bill Borg artist of Myrtle the Loggerhead Turtle; Rebecca Chamberlain, author and artist of Maralee & the Turtles of the Sea; Lisa Anne Cullen, author and artist of Haskel and Greta; Mary T. Jacobs, author of the Big Daddy Series; Ann Eilers Lilly, author of Scoot’s Savannah Rescue; Susan Montanari, author of My Dog’s a Chicken; Robin Prince Monroe, author of The Silent Glades; Sheree Richnow, author of Dixie the Rescue Dog Makes New Friends; Susan Diamond Riley, author of The Sea Witch’s Revenge; and Katherine Robinson, author of The Crabs on Calhoun.
All Hands on Deck, the student anthology from the 6th annual Camp Conroy will also make its debut at the Children’s Book Fair. And the Bluffton-based Storybook Shoppe will have a selection of other popular lowcountry children’s books available as well.
About the Featured Author:
Dinah Johnson is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including H Is for Harlem, which received five starred reviews and was named a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and a Horn Book Fanfare title. Indigo Dreaming is her most recent book. A professor of English at the University of South Carolina, she lives in Columbia. Learn more at www.dinahjohnsonbooks.com.

This program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which, as always, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.
