EDUCATION
“The great teachers of the world fill you up with hope and shower you with a thousand reasons to embrace all aspects of life.”—Pat Conroy, My Losing Season
Honoring Pat Conroy’s storied legacy as an innovative and progress classroom teacher as well as lifelong mentor to his fellow writers, the Pat Conroy Literary Center hosts and coordinates educational programs throughout the year for a variety of age groups and audiences. The Conroy Center’s focus on education is central to our mission and a significant part of the work of executive director, volunteers, and community partnerships.
These programs are led or facilitated by the Pat Conroy Literary Center, most at no charge to participants. We encourage potential donors to consider sponsorship to help offset costs. For more information on tax-deductible contributions for any of these programs, contact the Conroy Center.
Youth
Camp Conroy: Camp Conroy is an annual book-building camp for young writers and artists, ages 9 to 16, led by adult instructors and youth camp counselors, resulting in a published anthology of individual and collaborative work. Campers explore opportunities for self-expression as well as team-work and critical thinking as they writer, illustration, edit, design, and ultimately publish a book together.
Videos:
Storybuilders: Similar in spirit to Camp Conroy, the Storybuilders project is guided by adult volunteers working with third-grade students at a local Title 1 elementary school to inspire their creative thinking and writing skills, spark their imaginations, and help them explore and appreciate their lowcountry environments. This annual project also produces a booklet of the students’ work.
Video: https://youtu.be/XgkaI20b4GA?si=0jbdec0Nm1MCGep8
Read-Alouds: In collaboration with the students of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, the Conroy Center hosts a community read-aloud, AKA the Teddy Bear Picnic, at the Port Royal Farmers Market on the first Saturday of each month as an opportunity to bring literacy and storytelling into a popular community space. In collaboration with the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Historic Park, DAYLO and the Conroy Center also host Read with a Ranger literacy programs throughout the year, featuring a Park Ranger educator with a read-aloud and art activity. The Conroy Center also coordinates DAYLO student volunteer-led read-alouds in schools for Family Literacy Nights, Read Across America Week, and other educational events.
Videos:
Lowcountry Children’s Book Fair: One of the Conroy Center’s annual signature events, the Lowcountry Children’s Book Fair is a collaboration with the Port Royal Sound Foundation, the Storybook Shoppe children’s bookstore, the National Park Service, and the students of DAYLO to celebrate the many children’s book authors and artists who live and create in the lowcountry. The all-day event includes signings and activities with local children’s book creators, read-alouds with DAYLO and a Park Ranger, and special guest appearances by headlining authors or artists from beyond Beaufort County as well. This popular literacy and literary event is free and open to the public.
Past article: https://www.beaufortlifestyle.com/2024/07/01/lowcountry-childrens-book-fair-july-27/
Future Educator Scholarship: Honoring Pat Conroy’s legacy as an educator, the Conroy Center’s Future Educator Scholarship is a $5,000 award for an exceptional Beaufort County Student with a declared intention to pursue a degree in education or an education-related field. The scholarship is judged by a panel of experienced educators and mentors.
Past article: https://lcweekly.com/culture/kierra-thompson-conroy-centers-future-educator/
River of Words: The Beaufort County School District’s annual River of Words anthology is an opportunity to public elementary and middle school students to submit poetry and artwork for publication. The Conroy Center collaborates in the project through in-person creative writing workshops offered for students as well as a series of recorded poetry workshops featuring representative writers from across South Carolina.
Video: https://youtu.be/whhIwDRw_gc?si=3mQ5J0B-qTc2eFI8
Ann Head Literary Prize for Short Story: Established, judged, and sponsored by the family of Beaufort-born novelist and short story writer Ann Head, who was also Pat Conroy’s first creative writing mentor, the Ann Head Literary Prize honors Beaufort High School’s best short story writer each year with a cash award and publication. The Conroy Center serves as a coordinator for the prize and the winner’s public recognition.
Past Article: https://lcweekly.com/arts/rebecca-thompson-wins-fifth-annual-ann-head-literary-prize/
South Carolina High School Writing Contest: Hosted by the University of South Carolina Honors College, the annual South Carolina High School Writing Contest asks state high school juniors and seniors to respond creatively to the question of what they would do to improve South Carolina. As selected by a guest judge, the winners receive a cash prize and publication online. The competition was co-founded by Honors College Dean Steve Lynn, Pat Conroy, and Jonathan Haupt (then USC Press director, now Conroy Center executive director) and twice judged by Conroy. In honor of that relationship, the Conroy Center proudly serves as a sponsor for this annual student writing competition.
Link: https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/honors_college/about/writing_contest/
School Supplies Drive: In collaboration with the students of DAYLO and the Storybook Shoppe, the Conroy Center co-hosts an annual school supplies drive to benefit the students of a local Title 1 elementary school, with drop-off locations at the Center’s summer events as well as at the Center itself.
Past article: https://lcweekly.com/culture/jeffcoat-firm-donates-backpacks-to-st-helena-elementary/
Adults
Writers Workshops: Throughout the year, the Conroy Center hosts both in-person and virtual workshops for writers, taught by guest instructors, addressing aspects of the craft of writing as well as avenues for publication and professionalization. The workshops are opportunities for burgeoning writers to take first steps, for more experienced writers to improve skills, and for everyone to forge new connections to a supportive community of fellow creatives. The Lowcountry Writers Workshop, a chapter of the South Carolina Writers Association, also holds their critique group meetings in the Conroy Center.
Past article: https://lcweekly.com/arts/retired-fbi-agents-teach-workshops-at-conroy-center/
Writers Residency: Conjoined to the annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, the Conroy Center offers a week-long writers retreat, hosted by a local benefactor. The retreat is an opportunity to write in the isolation and beauty of the lowcountry which was so inspiring to Pat Conroy. Submission guidelines are announced in advance through the Center’s social media and email newsletter.
Past news article: https://lcweekly.com/arts/novelist-julie-cantrell-selected-for-conroy-center-residency/
FIWC The Water Is Wide Scholarship: In memory of Pat Conroy, the Fripp Island Women’s Club sponsors annual scholarships for non-traditional students advancing their education or seeking professional certifications through local higher education institutions. The Conroy Center serves as fiscal sponsor and PR coordinator for the scholarships.
Past article: https://lcweekly.com/culture/water-is-wide-scholarship-winners/
Both
Beaufort Human Library: “Where oral history meets speed dating.” The Beaufort Human Library project promotes empathy and understanding across communities by offering the public opportunities to “check out” more than a dozen volunteer Human Books who share personal stories of facing challenges and striving for acceptance. These engaging conversations cover topics including education, military service, healthcare, gender, race, addiction, abuse, and advocacy, among others. The dialogues focus on building bridges of understanding, person to person, through storytelling. The annual Beaufort Human Library is co-hosted by the Conroy Center, the students of DAYLO, the Technical College of the Lowcountry, and community organizers. An on-campus version specifically for students is also held twice annually at a local high school.
Videos:
Little Lowcountry Libraries: The Conroy Center commissioned two Little Lowcountry Libraries for community, from which books for all ages are freely available in a “take a book, leave a book” model. One of the little libraries is located at the Conroy Center, the other at the Depot Road Trailhead on the Spanish Moss Trail. In addition, students from DAYLO have added little libraries of their own as community literacy projects to local laundromats and a food pantry. DAYLO students routinely restock more than 20 little libraries (both registered Little Free Libraries and others) across our community. Books are often donated to the Conroy for redistribution.
Part article: https://www.beaufortlifestyle.com/2022/11/29/camp-conroys-little-lowcountry-library/
Fields trips and school visits: Throughout the year, the Conroy Center hosts student field trips and school visits as opportunities to discuss the writing and teaching legacy of Pat Conroy with students. The Center also hosts educational visits by adult lifelong learning groups and routinely gives guest presentations for Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes and likeminded groups and organizations, as well as for travel groups, books clubs, newcomers clubs, and others.
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Download File: https://patconroyliterarycenter.org/Conroy-Memoriam-ipad.m4v?_=1Why Beaufort, South Carolina?
“To describe our growing up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, “There. That taste. That’s the taste of my childhood.” I would say, “Breathe deeply,” and you would breathe and remember that smell for the rest of your life.” ~ From The Prince of Tides
“The charming Lowcountry port of Beaufort, South Carolina, is one of those sleepy southern hamlets, like Oxford, Mississippi, or Monroeville, Alabama, which has inspired more than its share of modern American novels. The picturesque coastal hamlet’s role as literary muse is easy to explain, thanks to its unequivocal beauty, which is found in every corner, from the antebellum mansions to the oak-hung cemeteries; the sunlit tidal marsh, to that old southern scene-stealer, the century oak draped in moss. If you’ve ever met an artist, in letters or watercolor or charcoal, you’ll understand that beauty in all its manifestations is a great motivator—and that the novel, at its best, is the distillation of a thousand stories from every walk of life and every prism of light.
The truth is that Beaufort, with its long history stretching back to colonial forts and Indian wars, has always entertained a lively dance of human interaction and a fusion of cultures: native and European, Old South, New South, black, white, transplant and tourist. It’s a crossroads community where the crew-cut severity of the modern soldier meets the languor and delicate duplicity of the small-town, radically divided Dixie.
Is it any wonder that such a culturally fecund slice of earth has sustained the career of so many writers, the most famous, by far, beloved adopted son Pat Conroy? Pat’s love affair with the Lowcountry is so thoroughly and dramatically conveyed in his writing that it might be described less as passion and more in the realm of well-aimed obsession.”
~Janis Owens, from her foreword to Famous all over Town: A Novel by Bernie Schein, published by Story River Books of USC Press, reprinted with publisher permission.
