The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be presented as a virtual event, live-streamed to our Facebook page, on Thursday, November 13, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured presenter is poet Devreaux Baker, winner of the 2025 Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry. Open Mic will also feature short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres, with host Melissa Whiteford St. Clair. Interested in reading as part of virtual Open Mic? Let us know at [...]

Silent Book Club Beaufort, a unique take on the traditional book club, will meet on Saturday, October 11, from 4:30 to 6:30PM at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). A relaxed and pressure-free space for readers of all types, this community gathering invites book lovers to enjoy their current reads in a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere. Silent Book Club Beaufort is co-sponsored by the Conroy Center and the student book club DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization). Unlike traditional book clubs, Silent [...]

“Here is all I ask of a book- give me everything. Everything, and don't leave out a single word.”—Pat Conroy, My Reading Life Update: Due to weather, this event will be held inside the Conroy Center. On Let Freedom Read Day, Saturday, October 11, the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, the South Carolina chapter of Authors Against Book Bans, and the DAYLO student book club will host a reading at Witness Tree Park from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Honoring the final day of Banned Books [...]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be held at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.) on Thursday, October 9, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured novelist will be Mary J. Nestor, author of Bus No. 7. Open Mic will also include short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres. Interested in reading as part of Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. About Our Featured Author Mary J. Nestor attended Marquette University in Wisconsin, [...]

How to Create Suspense: 5 Unforgettable Cliffhanger-Ending Techniques How do you keep the reader reading when the average adult's attention span is 8.25 seconds? Cliffhangers are a technique used by genre writers (who sometimes get a bad rap) to keep their readers reading. And isn’t that what we all aspire to, above everything? Because cliffhangers are sometimes associated with schlocky writing, that doesn't mean we should ignore their usefulness as a craft tool in all sorts of writing. We'll look at five chapter-ending cliffhanger techniques [...]

Silent Book Club Beaufort, a unique take on the traditional book club, will meet on Saturday, September 13, from 4:30 to 6:30PM at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). A relaxed and pressure-free space for readers of all types, this community gathering invites book lovers to enjoy their current reads in a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere. Silent Book Club Beaufort is co-sponsored by the Conroy Center and the student book club DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization). Unlike traditional book clubs, Silent [...]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be presented as a virtual event, live-streamed to our Facebook page, on Thursday, September 11, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured presenter is novelist Laura Leigh Morris, author of The Stone Catchers. Open Mic will also feature short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres, with host Melissa Whiteford St. Clair. Interested in reading as part of virtual Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. About Our Featured [...]

Silent Book Club Beaufort, a unique take on the traditional book club, will hold its next meetup on Saturday, August 23, from 4:30 to 6:30PM at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). A relaxed and pressure-free space for readers of all types, this community gathering invites book lovers to enjoy their current reads in a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere. Silent Book Club Beaufort is co-sponsored by the Conroy Center and the student book club DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization). Unlike traditional [...]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be held at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.) on Thursday, August 14, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured novelist will be Michael Spake, author of Life Close to the Bone. Open Mic will also include short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres. Interested in reading as part of Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. About Our Featured Authors Michael Spake is the author of Life [...]

Silent Book Club Beaufort, a unique take on the traditional book club, will hold its next meetup on Saturday, July 19, from 4:30 to 6:30PM at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). A relaxed and pressure-free space for readers of all types, this community gathering invites book lovers to enjoy their current reads in a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere. Silent Book Club Beaufort is co-sponsored by the Conroy Center and the student book club DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization). Unlike traditional [...]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be presented as a virtual event, live-streamed to our Facebook page, on Thursday, July 10, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured presenter is novelist Abagail Summers, author of After the Storm. Open Mic will also feature short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres. Interested in reading as part of virtual Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. About Our Featured Author: Abagail Summers is a Lowcountry author [...]

Silent Book Club Beaufort, a unique take on the traditional book club, will hold its next meetup on Saturday, June 21, from 4:30 to 6:30PM at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). A relaxed and pressure-free space for readers of all types, this community gathering invites book lovers to enjoy their current reads in a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere. Silent Book Club Beaufort is co-sponsored by the Conroy Center and the student book club DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization), bringing together [...]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be held at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St.) on Thursday, June 12, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Open Mic Night will feature local novelist Doris E. Wright, author of Cabbagehead. Open Mic will also include short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres. Interested in reading as part of Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. About Our Featured Author Doris E. Wright is an award-winning author whose [...]

The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an afternoon with Annelore Harrell, author of Et Cetera Y’all, Volume 1, on Saturday, May 31, 2025, at 2:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). 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. About the Book And Author “Step into the enchanting world of Annelore Harrell and the coastal Lowcountry I love so dearly. With twenty-four years of [...]

Silent Book Club Beaufort, a unique take on the traditional book club, will hold its next meetup on Saturday, May 24, from 4:30 to 6:30PM at the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St.). A relaxed and pressure-free space for readers of all types, this community gathering invites book lovers to enjoy their current reads in a welcoming and peaceful atmosphere. Silent Book Club Beaufort is co-sponsored by the Conroy Center and the student book club DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization), bringing together [...]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly Open Mic Night will be presented as a virtual event, live-streamed to our Facebook page, on Thursday, May 8, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. Our featured presenter is fiction writer James Alan Gill, author of the story collection Not Dark Yet. Open Mic will also feature short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres. Interested in reading as part of virtual Open Mic? Let us know at contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. About Our Featured Author: James [...]

The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening of with Eat It and Like It co-founder and host Jesse Blanco, author of Charleston Food Crawls on Thursday, May 1, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). Free and open to the public. Books will be available for sale and signing. Seating is limited: please call to reserve in advance: 843-379-7025. About Jesse Blanco and Charleston Food Crawls Charleston Food Crawls is an exciting culinary tour through the largest city [...]

Laurence Ferlinghetti wrote, “If you would be a poet, write living newspapers.” In this workshop we will consider the ways the occasion poem is often written to document or provide commentary on an event. Sometimes it is intended to be read or performed publicly, but not necessarily. There are no specific guidelines for occasion poems, except that they mark a specific occasion or situation. The poems can be long or short, serious or humorous, formal or experimental. We will look at several occasion poems together [...]

In honor of National Poetry Month, the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with Marjory Wentworth, past Poet Laureate of South Carolina, and author of One River, One Boat, on Friday, April 25, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). 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. About the Book and Author Famously cut from Governor Nikki Haley’s inauguration in 2015, [...]

The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, in partnership with NeverMore Books, will host an evening with novelist Emily Carpenter, author of the newly published novel Gothictown, on Thursday, April 17, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). Carpenter will be in conversation with Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt. 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. ABOUT THE BOOK AND AUTHOR “A high-energy read [...]