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SUMMARY:An Evening with Karen Salyer McElmurray
DESCRIPTION:Friday\, January 24\, 2025 – 5:00-6:00 PM EDT\nPrice: Free\nRegistration: Seating is limited; please call to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.\nVenue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St.\, Beaufort \nWebsite: Facebook Event Page \nThe nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with award-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray\, author of the essay collection I Could Name God in Twelve Ways\, on Friday\, January 24\, at 5:00 p.m.\, at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.\, Beaufort). \nFree and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing. Seating is limited; please call in advance to reserve: 843-379-7025. \nAbout I Could Name God in Twelve Ways\n“I could dream in poetry\, could summon words for spiritual experience\, could name God in twelve ways and in ten times and places in history.” \nAward-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray details her life’s journey across continents and decades in a poetic collection that is equal parts essay-as-memoir\, memoir-as-Künstlerroman\, and travelogue-as-meditation. \nIt is about the deserts of India. A hospital ward in Maryland. The blue seas of Greece. A greenhouse in Virginia. It is about the spirit houses of Thailand. The mountains of eastern Kentucky. The depths of the Grand Canyon. A creative writing classroom in Georgia. An attic in a generations-old house. It is about coming to terms with both memory and the power of writing itself. \nAt turns lyrical\, poignant\, and alluring\, McElmurray probes her personal history from the stance of different places\, perspectives\, and vulnerabilities as she tenderly and fiercely searches for acceptance and a place to call home. \n“McElmurray teaches us how to reckon and ravel\, how to unpack secrets\, abandon maps\, and learn from everything\, even vertigo\, even a global pandemic. This book is for everyone who has ever felt vulnerable in this world\, which is to say\, everyone.”―Julie Marie Wade\, author of Otherwise: Essays and Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing \n“The essays in this stunning collection are elegiac\, urgent\, vulnerable―full of loss and longing. Although the narrative is rooted in Kentucky\, the scope is global as the narrator travels literally and metaphorically toward love and away from the ghosts of the past.”―Sue William Silverman\, author of Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul \nAbout the Author \nKaren Salyer McElmurray’s Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey\, was an AWP Award Winner for Creative Nonfiction. Her novels are The Motel of the Stars\, Editor’s Pick by Oxford American\, and Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven\, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. \nAs a fiction writer\, she is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts\, the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her work in nonfiction has been a recipient of the Annie Dillard Award for the Essay\, the New Southerner Award\, the Orison Anthology Award for Creative Nonfiction and\, most recently\, the LitSouth Award. She has co-edited\, with poet Adrian Blevins\, an essay collection called Walk till the Dogs Get Mean. Wanting Radiance\, a novel\, and Voice Lessons\, a short collection of lyric essays\, came out in 2021. A new essay collection\, I Could Name God in Twelve Ways came out in September 2024 from University Press of Kentucky. \n  \n\nThis program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which\, as always\, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.
URL:https://patconroyliterarycenter.org/calendar/an-evening-with-karen-salyer-mcelmurray/
LOCATION:Pat Conroy Literary Center\, 601 Bladen Street\, Beaufort\, SC\, 29902\, United States
CATEGORIES:Author Interview
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SUMMARY:An Evening with Karen Salyer McElmurray\, Author of I Could Name God in Twelve Ways
DESCRIPTION:The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with award-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray\, author of the essay collection I Could Name God in Twelve Ways and the novel Wanting Radiance\, on Friday\, January 24\, at 5:00 p.m.\, at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.\, Beaufort). Sponsored in part by WayWord Books\, this author event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing. Seating is limited; please call in advance to reserve: 843-379-7025. \nMcElmurray will also lead a writing workshop on Saturday\, January 25\, beginning at 9:30 a.m. Details and registration: https://endingsandbeginningsworkshop.eventbrite.com \nABOUT I COULD NAME GOD IN TWELVE WAYS \n“I could dream in poetry\, could summon words for spiritual experience\, could name God in twelve ways and in ten times and places in history.”  \nAward-winning writer Karen Salyer McElmurray details her life’s journey across continents and decades in a poetic collection that is equal parts essay-as-memoir\, memoir-as-Künstlerroman\, and travelogue-as-meditation. \nIt is about the deserts of India. A hospital ward in Maryland. The blue seas of Greece. A greenhouse in Virginia. It is about the spirit houses of Thailand. The mountains of eastern Kentucky. The depths of the Grand Canyon. A creative writing classroom in Georgia. An attic in a generations-old house. It is about coming to terms with both memory and the power of writing itself.\nAt turns lyrical\, poignant\, and alluring\, McElmurray probes her personal history from the stance of different places\, perspectives\, and vulnerabilities as she tenderly and fiercely searches for acceptance and a place to call home. \n“McElmurray teaches us how to reckon and ravel\, how to unpack secrets\, abandon maps\, and learn from everything\, even vertigo\, even a global pandemic. This book is for everyone who has ever felt vulnerable in this world\, which is to say\, everyone.”―Julie Marie Wade\, author of Otherwise: Essays and Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing \n“The essays in this stunning collection are elegiac\, urgent\, vulnerable―full of loss and longing. Although the narrative is rooted in Kentucky\, the scope is global as the narrator travels literally and metaphorically toward love and away from the ghosts of the past.”―Sue William Silverman\, author of Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul \nABOUT WANTING RADIANCE \nMiracelle Loving’s world comes crashing down when her mother\, Ruby\, is murdered during a fortune-telling session gone wrong. Without the guidance of her mother\, Miracelle grows up following the only path she knows\, traveling from town to town\, sometimes fortune-telling\, picking up odd jobs to fill the time and escape the ever-present lostness she can’t seem to run far enough away from. \nUncertain of what she wants and\, indeed\, whether she wants anything or anyone at all\, the now thirty-something-year-old finds herself working as a card reader in a Knoxville dive bar\, selling fictions as futures\, when she is confronted with her mother’s ghost voice promising to reveal the truth about her shadowy past. Desperate for answers\, Miracelle sets out on a magical road trip unlike any other\, in search of her own story and a father she’s never known. \nFollowing snowy highways and backroads\, Miracelle stumbles across a museum of oddities and a hole-in-the-road town called Radiant\, ultimately wandering into the town of Smyte\, where she begins waitressing at the Black Cat Diner. Here\, she befriends card-playing has-been Russell Wallen\, whom she joins for a series of nighttime adventures\, long drives\, and after-dark visits to a Holy Roller church. This mythical journey uncovers family secrets and forgotten truths\, transforming a familiar story of love and betrayal to reveal the binding power of magic and memory. \n“A poetic tale of a daughter’s quiet exploration of her past and how it pushes her forward.” —The Rumpus \n“An incantatory Appalachian gothic tale of love\, murder\, and restless souls\, populated with unforgettable flesh-and-blood characters . . . [a] masterpiece.” —Amy Greene\, national bestselling author \nABOUT THE AUTHOR \nKaren Salyer McElmurray’s Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey\, was an AWP Award Winner for Creative Nonfiction.Her novels are The Motel of the Stars\, Editor’s Pick by Oxford American\, and Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven\, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing.As a fiction writer\, she is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts\, the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her work in nonfiction has been a recipient of the Annie Dillard Award for the Essay\, the New Southerner Award\, the Orison Anthology Award for Creative Nonfiction and\, most recently\, the LitSouth Award. She has co-edited\, with poet Adrian Blevins\, an essay collection called Walk till the Dogs Get Mean. Wanting Radiance\, a novel\, and Voice Lessons\, a short collection of lyric essays\, came out in 2021. A new essay collection\, I Could Name God in Twelve Ways came out in September 2024 from University Press of Kentucky.
URL:https://patconroyliterarycenter.org/calendar/an-evening-with-karen-salyer-mcelmurray-author-of-i-could-name-god-in-twelve-ways/
LOCATION:601 Bladen Street\, Beaufort\, SC\, United States\, South Carolina 29902
CATEGORIES:Other
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SUMMARY:Endings and Beginnings: Writing Workshop Led by Karen Salyer McElmurray
DESCRIPTION:Endings and Beginnings\nGraham Greene once said\, “a story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” This arbitrariness—catching hold of an idea or a dream or a moment of insight—is certainly part of the sheer magic of writing. Deciding how to start a story and how to end it involves careful translation of our original moments of insight. Beginnings and endings become careful revision once we capture the arbitrary experience we begin with. This workshop will look at some examples of openings and endings from essays and longer works of memoir. We will discuss\, and we will also begin work on writing some openings of our own. \nThis is an in-person writers workshop\, held at the Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). Limited to 12 participants with advance registration required: $60/person. \nRegister: https://endingsandbeginningsworkshop.eventbrite.com \nAbout Our Instructor:\nKaren Salyer McElmurray’s Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey\, was an AWP Award Winner for Creative Nonfiction. Her novels are The Motel of the Stars\, Editor’s Pick by Oxford American\, and Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven\, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. As a fiction writer\, she is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts\, the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her work in nonfiction has been a recipient of the Annie Dillard Award for the Essay\, the New Southerner Award\, the Orison Anthology Award for Creative Nonfiction and\, most recently\, the LitSouth Award. She has co-edited\, with poet Adrian Blevins\, an essay collection called Walk till the Dogs Get Mean. Wanting Radiance\, a novel\, and Voice Lessons\, a short collection of lyric essays\, came out in 2021. A new essay collection\, I Could Name God in Twelve Ways came out in September 2024 from University Press of Kentucky.
URL:https://patconroyliterarycenter.org/calendar/endings-and-beginnings-writing-workshop-led-by-karen-salyer-mcelmurray/
LOCATION:601 Bladen Street\, Beaufort\, SC\, United States\, South Carolina 29902
CATEGORIES:Other
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SUMMARY:Workshop: Endings and Beginnings\, Led by Karen Salyer McElmurray
DESCRIPTION:Register: Register at EventBrite \nSaturday\, January 25\, 2025 · 9:30am – 12pm EST\nCost: $60\nLimited to 12 participants\nVenue: Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St Beaufort\, SC 29902 \nGraham Greene once said\, “a story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” This arbitrariness—catching hold of an idea or a dream or a moment of insight—is certainly part of the sheer magic of writing. Deciding how to start a story and how to end it involves careful translation of our original moments of insight. \nBeginnings and endings become careful revision once we capture the arbitrary experience we begin with. This workshop will look at some examples of openings and endings from essays and longer works of memoir. We will discuss\, and we will also begin work on writing some openings of our own. \nThis is an in-person writers workshop\, held at the Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). Limited to 12 participants with advance registration required: $60/person. \nLearn more and register at EventBrite \nWebsite: Facebook Event Page \nAbout our instructor: \nKaren Salyer McElmurray’s Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey\, was an AWP Award Winner for Creative Nonfiction. Her novels are The Motel of the Stars\, Editor’s Pick by Oxford American\, and Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven\, winner of the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing. \nAs a fiction writer\, she is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts\, the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the North Carolina Arts Council. Her work in nonfiction has been a recipient of the Annie Dillard Award for the Essay\, the New Southerner Award\, the Orison Anthology Award for Creative Nonfiction and\, most recently\, the LitSouth Award. She has co-edited\, with poet Adrian Blevins\, an essay collection called Walk till the Dogs Get Mean. Wanting Radiance\, a novel\, and Voice Lessons\, a short collection of lyric essays\, came out in 2021. A new essay collection\, I Could Name God in Twelve Ways came out in September 2024 from University Press of Kentucky. \n  \n\nThis program and others like this would not be possible without your financial help for which\, as always\, Pat Conroy Literary Center gratefully thanks you.
URL:https://patconroyliterarycenter.org/calendar/workshop-endings-and-beginnings-led-by-karen-salyer-mcelmurray/
LOCATION:Pat Conroy Literary Center\, 601 Bladen Street\, Beaufort\, SC\, 29902\, United States
CATEGORIES:Workshop
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