The Pat Conroy Literary Center’s monthly Open Mic Night will be held virtually on Thursday, November 14, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured writer is poet Mamie Morgan, author of Everyone I’ve Danced with Is Dead. Open Mic will also feature short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres.

When: Thursday, November 14, 2024 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:
Mamie Morgan received an MFA from UNC Wilmington and a BA in English and Religious Studies from Wofford. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous literary journals, including Washington Square Review, the Oxford American, Fish Barrel Review, Nimrod, Muzzle, Four Way Review, Yemassee, Carolina Quarterly, Inkwell, and the Greensboro Review. She lives in the woods with her husband and their two pit bulls, Henrietta Modine and Wednesday Stewart.

About Everyone I’ve Danced with Is Dead

“Reading these poems is like sitting down with a friend for a conversation-the kind of friend you trust to tell all of the truth, but with mercy. These whip-smart poems don’t flinch, even at the hardest truths about what it means to be human-to love and to lose, to damage and be damaged, to live through moments ‘where the quake originates,’ that make you cling to ‘every word that had ever made me want to stay alive.’ These poems have an electric power, one strong enough to change lives. Morgan faces devastation with such an open grace and generosity that a reader can’t help but feel there’s one truth more real than any other: that even in the moments that shake us to the core, there is always hope.”–Emma Bolden

“The central organ pumping blood through these poems is wonderment. Morgan’s particular brand of wonder knows no hierarchies: love, betrayal, fallings out, quotidian, joy, jail, sex, school, the body, war, race, politics, and that old tricker Death all crowd around the same table. This book pulls you forward and shows you the world as it is–a mess worth celebrating, recoiling from, enduring, and embracing. These poems are built of risk and witness–importantly, they have the language and daring to match. This is one helluva barn burner.”–Michael McGriff

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.