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Meet Bluffton Book Festival Director Rockelle Henderson by Jonathan Haupt

“Living in the lowcountry has given me a renewed purpose in life, and the festival grew out of that sense of direction…. I’m blessed to be able to offer a platform to help many more writers get to know readers and one another. It’s also a chance for us to give back locally to the Literacy Center and nationally to the publishing industry via the Book Industry Charitable Foundation.”

Rockelle Henderson is the president of Rock Inked, Inc., an […]

By |2024-08-10T14:15:09-04:00October 31st, 2017|

Finding Your True Light: Ann Kidd Taylor on Writing by Mindy Lucas

“It’s like you find this true light, which for me was writing, and then you lose that light, and then you have to go find that true light again. And in many ways, that was what happened to me.”

Ann Kidd Taylor grew up watching her mother, best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd, write from a room in their home–an experience she describes as “the most normal thing in the world” when you’re a child.

And yet for Taylor, it […]

By |2017-11-12T20:49:07-05:00October 16th, 2017|

Porch Talk Live Goes to SoFest with Southern Storytellers Wiley Cash and Radney Foster by Jonathan Haupt

 

“My impulse as a writer is to have readers enter a novel the same way you enter a dream.”–Wiley Cash

Porch Talk went to the 29th annual Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, TN, for a lively conversation with novelist Wiley Cash (The Last Ballad) and musical guest, singer, songwriter, and author Radney Foster (For You to See the Stars), hosted by Pat Conroy Literary Center executive director Jonathan Haupt. This Porch Talk Live session […]

By |2023-06-23T15:56:03-04:00October 16th, 2017|

What Did You Learn from Pat Conroy? by Margaret Evans

Pat Conroy taught me that there’s something even more transformative than education, and it’s the power of grace.

This Porch Talk originally appeared in The Lowcountry Weekly. 

The second annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival is almost upon us, and this year’s theme is The Transformative Power of Education. In honor of that rich subject, I asked a random handful of festival presenters to ruminate on “one thing” they learned from Pat Conroy, through his writing or his […]

By |2021-03-29T15:10:33-04:00October 5th, 2017|

J.C. Sasser, a Bold New Voice in Southern Gothic Fiction by Jonathan Haupt

 J.C. Sasser

“That’s what it is to be a storyteller. It’s a calling to tell the tales that help us to know who we are.”

Novelist J.C. (Jana) Sasser lives amid the woods and marshes of South Carolina’s Edisto Island, halfway between Beaufort and Charleston and seemingly halfway between the present and the past. Once home to novelist Bren McClain, Sasser’s house is a converted barn that dates at least to the 1930s and is made in part from wood […]

By |2024-08-10T14:14:21-04:00September 28th, 2017|

Pat Conroy Literary Center an Affiliate of American Writers Museum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jonathan Haupt | 843-379-7025
jonathan@patconroyliterarycenter.org

PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER IS AN AFFILIATE OF AMERICAN WRITERS MUSEUM

The Pat Conroy Literary Center is proud to announce that we have been selected as an affiliate of the American Writers Museum–the first site in South Carolina to receive this national designation. “For our Conroy Center to be approved as an AWM affiliate on the basis of our first year’s worth of public programming and operations speaks volumes about all that we are doing […]

By |2017-11-02T19:13:31-04:00September 18th, 2017|

Beaufort Booksellers Talk about Habit that “Got Out of Hand” by Mindy Lucas

David and Lorrie Anderson

“It was definitely fun when Pat Conroy came into your bookstore.”

Longtime Beaufort, South Carolina, residents, David and Lorrie Anderson didn’t start their work lives in the bookselling business, but that’s exactly where they ended up after David’s habit of collecting books “got out of hand.”

The couple first opened NeverMore Books, a local bookstore specializing in unique, hard-to-find books and signed first editions, in September of 2015 on Carteret Street. But a little over a […]

By |2017-11-12T20:21:15-05:00September 13th, 2017|

Meet Novelist and Gold Star Daughter Karen Spears Zacharias by Margaret Evans

Karen Spears Zacharias

“Reflecting on Pat stories brings a smile and fills me with a mirth too often missing from life during these turbulent times…. His words were a healing balm I had needed my whole life long.”

Novelist Karen Spears Zacharias is a Georgia-raised Gold Star daughter. Her work as a journalist has been featured in the New York Times and on CNN, National Public Radio, and Good Morning America. Zacharias is the author of eight books, including Mother […]

By |2024-08-10T14:13:06-04:00August 17th, 2017|

Exploring the Truth of Fiction with Author and Artist Nicole Seitz by Jonathan Haupt

“We cannot read a book without importing ourselves as characters. This is one of the marvels of fiction. We get to rehearse things on the written page. We get to examine our own motives and lives through books.”

A Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, native, writer and artist Nicole Seitz is the author of six novels, including The Spirit of Sweetgrass, The Inheritance of Beauty, and Beyond Molasses Creek. Nicole’s fiction has been honored by Library Journal, Romantic Times, […]

By |2017-11-12T20:05:24-05:00August 8th, 2017|

Mapping the Inner Darkness with Novelist Mark Powell by Margaret Evans

Mark Powell

“After reading Pat Conroy the first time I began to understand there was a larger world I could read my way into, and it was like discovering water at the same moment you realize you are dying of thirst.”

Following this Porch Talk interview, read an exclusive excerpt from Mark Powell’s essay on Pat Conroy, “The Extended Hand.”

Mark Powell is one of my favorite mysteries. I discovered Mark through his novel The Sheltering, published by Pat Conroy’s Story […]

By |2024-08-10T14:10:12-04:00July 25th, 2017|
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