An Evening with Quitman Marshall, author of Swampitude
2023-11-27 17:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | Beaufort Bookstore, 2127 Boundary St, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Monday, November 27, 2023 – 5:00-6:30 PM EDT
Price: Free
Registration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-525-1066.
Venue: Beaufort Bookstore | 2127 Boundary St. #15, Beaufort
Website: Facebook Event Page
Beaufort Bookstore and the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with poet and writer Quitman Marshall, author of Swampitude: Escapes with the Congaree, on Monday, November 27, at 5:00 p.m. at the Beaufort Bookstore (2127 Boundary St #15, Beaufort).
This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing. Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-525-1066.
ABOUT Swampitude
A Finalist for the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize
“Swampitude is the kind of book I look for…. I love its mix of the land and the personal and the philosophical. It’s marvelous….”–Joe Mackall, editor, River Teeth Journal
Swampitude: Escapes with the Congaree explores and meditates upon the social, literary, historical, personal, ecological, psychological, and political meanings of a swamp: swamps in general, and a particular swamp, the Congaree in the center of South Carolina, which has been designated a United Nations Biosphere Reserve and is now Congaree National Park.
A magical place of escape and fecundity, the Congaree Swamp, emblematic of all such often forbidding terrains, is the largest old-growth river bottom forest in the United States. It is in the American South and has filtered much of that region’s history. The Congaree is also lucky to have gathered an environmental movement, escaped the fate of most similar wetlands, and to continue to flood, drain, and provide refuge for all creatures in need of it. This book celebrates the survival, the stories, and the continuance of such places.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in South Carolina, Quitman Marshall grew up in the swamp. He has published five books of poetry, including You Were Born One Time (2014), which won the SC Poetry Archives Book Prize. A winner of the Writers Exchange Award sponsored by Poets and Writers, Inc., and the founding coordinator of the Literary Series at the Spoleto Festival, USA, he has lived in Barcelona, Washington, DC, Amherst, MA, New York City, the suburbs of Paris, and presently in Beaufort, SC, with his family. He works as a writer, editor, translator, and teacher.
Peggy Peattie is a multiple award-winning photo-journalist with 40 years experience. She worked for a decade in Los Angeles before joining The State newspaper in SC. There she published Down in Dixie, a documentary of the racial tensions around the confederate flag. Back in San Diego, she concentrates on stories of the border with Mexico and the unhoused community.

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 Linda Lovely, author of A Killer App
2023-11-29 18:00 - 19:30 | Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street, Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Wednesday November 29, 2023 – 6:00-7:30 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 mystery novelist Linda Lovely, author of A Killer App (An HOA Mystery), on Wednesday, November 29, at 6:00 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.
In keeping with the themes and plot of her newest novel, Linda will also be discussing AI (Artificial Intelligence) and its implications for writers and readers.
About A Killer App
Kylee Kane, a security consultant for Welch HOA Management, finds the first victim, Andy Fyke, crumpled at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Kylee suspects his fall’s no accident and is tied to Andy’s campaign to prohibit rentals in his Hilton Head Island community. Yet, Andy’s obvious enemies have ironclad alibis. When another Lowcountry HOA retiree dies in a hit-and-run boat tragedy, Kylee begins to think the incidents are linked-even though the victims and their assailants have little in common.
The link is the Chameleon, an Artificial Intelligence expert, who can create a deepfake of almost anyone-living or dead. Even more frightening is the Chameleon’s ability to seek out disturbed souls and laser-focus their rage. A talent employed to compel subjects to act as surrogate assassins. When Kylee begins to pursue the Chameleon, the AI expert decides it’s time to groom an assassin to permanently sideline Kylee.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Killer App is Linda Lovely’s eleventh mystery/suspense novel. Whether she’s writing cozy mysteries, historical suspense or contemporary thrillers, her novels share one common element-smart, independent heroines. Humor and romance also sneak into every manuscript.
Her work has been recognized as a finalist by such prestigious awards as RWA’s Golden Heart for Romantic Suspense and Thriller Nashville’s Silver Falchion for Best Cozy Mystery. A long-time member of Sisters in Crime and former chapter president, Lovely also belongs to Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. She lives on a lake in Upstate South Carolina with her husband, and enjoys swimming, tennis, gardening, long walks, and, of course, reading.
As part of her discussion of AI, Lovely will also address: What prompted her to create a villain with expertise in AI? How did she investigate the tools at the disposal of an AI-savvy bad actor? How does AI respond if you ask it about potential perils for humanity…and benefits? How does AI impact authors? What’s the immediate impact for authors in regard to publishing contracts and copyright infringement? Are there legitimate and ethical ways for authors to use AI? How many books are currently being generated by AI and sold in competition with human author creations? What did the screen writers win in their strike against the studios? What protections exist for cover artists and designers? How can readers determine if the books they’re considering buying are AI-generated? Why should they care? What does AI mean long-term for the publishing world?

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 Pat Conroy Cookbook
2023-11-30 18:30 - 19:30 | The Rhett House Inn, 1009 Craven St., Beaufort, SC, 29902, United States
Thursday November 30, 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)
Register at Eventbrite
Future discussion dates will be announced this fall.
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.
