The Pat Conroy Literary Center's monthly virtual Open Mic Night is hosted by Brooke McKinney and presented in partnership with the South Carolina Writers Association.

"A library could show you everything, if you knew where to look."—Pat Conroy, My Reading Life The author of "The Prince of Tides," "The Great Santini" and "The Water Is Wide," Pat Conroy (1945–2016) is synonymous with the Lowcountry. Pat Conroy Literary Center executive director Jonathan Haupt and intern Alisha Arora will discuss Conroy’s lifelong love of books and libraries—focusing on the roles public libraries, school libraries, and Pat's own personal library played in his writing life. Through video and audio clips, photographs, and published and unpublished writings by and about Conroy, this presentation welcomes attendees into the book-filled world of one of America's most beloved writers. Free and open to the public, this special event was held at the Bluffton Branch Library (120 Palmetto Way) on Tuesday, May 10. About Our Presenters Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Conroy Center and the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, where he created the Story River Books fiction imprint with Pat Conroy, named by Garden & Gun magazine as one of "the top ten things to love about the South." Haupt’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle, Savannah Morning News’ Beacon magazine, Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers Magazine’s Suite T blog. He is co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, the recipient of seventeen book awards. He serves on the boards of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries and the South Carolina Academy of Authors. In 2020, Haupt was recognized with the Doug Marlette Literacy Leadership Award presented by the Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the U.S. Beaufort County Library volunteer and Beaufort High School senior Alisha Arora is vice president of the BHS chapter of the National Honor Society and a board member of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization. An accomplished AP and Honors student in numerous STEM courses, with an emphasis on the biological sciences, she is the recipient of Academic Excellent Awards. Arora is also a competitive dancer and captain of the BHS Girls Varsity Tennis Team, and she teaches younger peers in summer tennis camps and at her dance studio.

“The poets of the world occupy a place of high honor in my city of books.”—Pat Conroy, My Reading Life In honor of National Poetry Month, join Jonathan Haupt and Beaufort High School students Holland Perryman, Alisha Arora, and Millie Bennett as they explore Pat Conroy’s lifelong relationship with poetry as a reader, as a self-described “failed poet,” and as a writer who found a creative outlet for his Great Love of poetry in his lyrical and descriptive prose. Through discussion of Pat’s teachers, mentors, and favorite poets, and through published and unpublished writings spanning the breadth of his life, this free public program fosters a new appreciation for Conroy's admiration of poetry, his dedication to the writing craft, and the myriad ways in which poetry shines through his storied prose. This presentation was originally created in collaboration with poet and retired educator Tim Conroy, author of Theologies of Terrain. Pat Conroy's Great Love of Poetry was presented on April 26 at and in partnership with the Beaufort County Library. About the Presenters Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Conroy Center and the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, where he created the Story River Books fiction imprint with Pat Conroy, named by Garden & Gun magazine as one of "the top ten things to love about the South." Haupt’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle, Savannah Morning News’ Beacon magazine, Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers Magazine’s Suite T blog. He is co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, the recipient of seventeen book awards. He serves on the boards of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries and the South Carolina Academy of Authors. In 2020, Haupt was recognized with the Doug Marlette Literacy Leadership Award presented by the Pulpwood Queens, the largest book club in the U.S. The first student intern of both the Pat Conroy Literary Center and the Friends of South Carolina Libraries, Beaufort High School senior and student body president Holland Perryman is captain of the Girls Varsity Lacrosse Team, founder of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, winner of the Ann Head Literary Prize for Short Story, and a book reviewer and author interviewer for the Charleston Post and Courier, the Beaufort Lowcountry Weekly, and the Southern Review of Books. Perryman is the first writer of any age to be twice featured in the Lowcountry Poets Corner segment of ETV’s TELLY Award-winning author interview series By the River. Beaufort County Library volunteer and Beaufort High School senior Alisha Arora is vice president of the BHS chapter of the National Honor Society, a board member of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, and an intern of the Pat Conroy Literary Center. An accomplished AP and Honors student in numerous STEM courses, with an emphasis on the biological sciences, she is the recipient of Academic Excellent Awards. Arora is also a competitive dancer and captain of the BHS Girls Varsity Tennis Team, and she teaches younger peers in summer tennis camps and at her dance studio. Beaufort High School junior and Pat Conroy Literary Center intern Millie Bennett is a writer, visual artist, singer, and actress. A student in the AP Capstone Program, she is also a founding member of the BHS chapter of Letters for Rose, dedicated to reducing loneliness in nursing homes and assisted living residents during the pandemic. In 2020, Millie was selected for the SC Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities Summer Program for Visual Arts, and in 2021, she participated in the SCAD Summer Sessions for Visual Art, Animation, and Character Development.

NeverMore Books and the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center hosted an evening with novelist Kimberly Brock, author of The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare--in conversation with Holland Perryman and Jonathan Haupt, who also reviewed the novel for the Charleston Post & Courier. ABOUT THE LOST BOOK OF ELEANOR DARE “The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl." What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured Commonplace Book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped. In the waning days of World War Two, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare. In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kimberly Brock is the award-winning author of The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare and The River Witch. Her debut was an Amazon bestseller featured by both national and international book clubs and included in multiple reading lists. Praised by RT Reviews and Huffington Post as a “solemn journey of redemption, enlightenment and love,” and evocative of “the stories of Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers,” Kimberly’s debut novel was honored with the prestigious Georgia Author of the Year Award in 2013, by the Georgia Writer’s Association. A former actor and special needs educator, Kimberly received her bachelor’s degree from the University of West Georgia in 1996. In 2014, Kimberly founded Tinderbox Writer’s Workshop, a transformative creative experience for women in the arts. Kimberly has served as a guest lecturer for many regional and national groups, including The Women’s Fiction Writer’s annual conference and The Pat Conroy Literary Center. She lives near Atlanta with her husband and three children. https://kimberlybrockbooks.com ABOUT THE HOSTS The first intern of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center and of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries, Beaufort High School senior and student body president Holland Perryman is an award-winning young writer whose work has been featured in the Charleston Post and Courier, Lowcountry Weekly, Southern Review of Books, and the anthologies River of Words and Stretching Skyward. Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, and coeditor of the award-winning anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy. Learn more about the Pat Conroy Literary Center: www.patconroyliterarycenter.org. Learn more about NeverMore Books: www.nevermorebooks.com.