6th Annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival: Virtual and In Person

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler (Late City); Alabama’s youngest and first African American Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones (Reparations, Now); literary activist and morning show host E. Ethelbert Miller (When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery); best-selling writers Patti Callahan (Once Upon a Wardrobe), Wiley Cash (When Ghosts Come Home), and Brian Panowich (Hard Cash Valley); award-winning photographer Andrew Feiler (A Better Life for Their Children); and Carrie McCray Nickens Poetry Fellowship winner Elizabeth Robin (Where Green Meets Blue) and all five fellowship finalists are scheduled to headline this year’s sixth annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, November 4-7. The event includes fourteen free author events, held in locations across Beaufort County and online, as well as eight writers workshops.

See details at www.patconroyliteraryfestival.org and www.facebook.com/PatConroyFestival (where announcements and updates will be posted frequently).

The annual Conroy Festival began as Pat Conroy’s 70th birthday celebration in October 2015, created by Conroy’s Story River Books publishing partner Jonathan Haupt, now executive director of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary

Center. The festival is made possible each year by a generous gift from the Robert S. Handler Trust and through collaborations with a pantheon of community partners, this year including the Crescendo festival of Hilton Head Island, the Coastal Discovery Museum, Island Writers Network, Technical College of the Lowcountry, Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce, Beaufort Bookstore, NeverMore Books, Lowcountry Presbyterian Church, the University of South Carolina Beaufort, Beaufort High School’s DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization), and the Friends of the Beaufort Library. Grant support is provided by South Carolina Humanities, a nonprofit organization inspiring, engaging and enriching South Carolinians with programs on literature, history, culture and heritage.

The nonprofit Conroy Center is open to the public Thursday through Sunday, noon to 4:00 p.m. (with extended hours during the festival weekend) at 601 Bladen Street in historic downtown Beaufort.

PAT CONROY LITERARY FESTIVAL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Thursday, November 4

10:00 a.m. Workshop: Characters Who Grow from Where They’re Planted, with Estelle Ford-Williamson ($45, virtual and in-person, Pat Conroy Literary Center)*

1:00 p.m. Workshop: Memoir as Vaccine, with E. Ethelbert Miller (free, Coastal Discovery Museum)*

6:00 p.m. Author Event: E. Ethelbert Miller (When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery) in conversation with Elizabeth Robin (free, Coastal Discovery Museum)

 

Friday, November 5

10:00 a.m. Workshop: The Healing Art, with Rosemary Daniell ($45, virtual)*

1:00 p.m. Workshop: The Lowdown on Evaluating Your Memoir, with Judy Goldman ($45, virtual)*

1:30 p.m. Author Event: Wiley Cash (When Ghosts Come Home) and Brian Panowich (Hard Cash Valley) in conversation with Ellen Malphrus (free, Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce)

3:00 p.m. Author Event: Remembering Dorothea Benton Frank with Contributing Writers to Reunion Beach: Cassandra King, Patti Callahan, Marjory Wentworth, and Gervais Hagerty (free, Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce)

4:00 p.m. Workshop: Songwriting with Jennifer Daniels (Neal) and Jeff Neal ($45, virtual and in-person, Pat Conroy Literary Center)*

6:30 p.m. Author Event: Jennifer Daniels Neal (The Locke Box) and Estelle Ford-Williamson (Rising Fawn) First Friday signing at NeverMore Books (free)

11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.: Friends of the Beaufort Library Book Sale at Waterfront Park, Beaufort

 

Saturday, November 6

9:00 a.m. Author Event: Readings by Our Camp Conroy Students and the Winner of Beaufort High School’s Ann Head Literary Prize for Short Story (free, virtual, live-streamed on the Pat Conroy Literary Festival Facebook page)

10:30 a.m. Author Event: Jennifer Daniels Neal (The Locke Box) and Estelle Ford-Williamson (Rising Fawn) in Conversation (free, Technical College of the Lowcountry, bldg. 12 auditorium)

10:30 a.m. Workshop: Poetry as Superpower, with Derek Berry and Ann-Chadwell Humphries ($45, virtual and in-person, TCL, bldg. 12)*

12:00 p.m. Author Event: Robert Olen Butler (Late City) and Bren McClain

(One Good Mama Bone) in Conversation (free, virtual, live-streamed on the Festival Facebook page and at TCL, bldg. 12 auditorium)*

12:30 p.m. Workshop: Sense of Place, with Danielle Verwers and Miho Kinnas ($45, virtual and in-person, TCL, bldg. 12)*

1:30 p.m. Author Event: Andrew Feiler, author of A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools That Changed America (free, TCL, bldg. 12 auditorium)

2:30 p.m. Workshop: Create the Discipline, with Yvette R. Murray and Elizabeth Robin ($45, virtual and in-person, TCL, bldg. 12)*

3:00 p.m. Author Event: DAYLO Student Discussion with Anjali Enjeti (The Parted Earth), Cinelle Barnes (A Measure of Belonging), and Ashley M. Jones (Reparations, Now) (free, virtual, live-streamed on the Festival Facebook page and at TCL, bldg. 12 auditorium)*

4:30 p.m. Author Event: Carrie McCray Nickens Poetry Fellowship Reading

with Elizabeth Robin, Miho Kinnas, Derek Berry, Danielle Verwers, Ann-Chadwell Humphries, and Yvette R. Murray, moderated by Ellen Malphrus (free, Technical College of the Lowcountry, bldg. 12 auditorium)

6:30 p.m. Festival Open Mic Night, headlined by Ashley M. Jones (Reparations, Now) and featuring fellow festival presenting authors (free, Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce and live-streamed on the Festival Facebook page)

 

10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.: Friends of the Beaufort Library Book Sale at Waterfront Park, Beaufort

 

Sunday, November 7

2:00 p.m. Author Event: Rosemary Daniell (Fatal Flowers and Sleeping with

Soldiers) and Judy Goldman (Together and Child), in Conversation with Ellen Malphrus (free, virtual, live-streamed on the Festival Facebook page)*

4:00 p.m. Author Event: Patti Callahan, author of Once Upon a Wardrobe, in Conversation with Margaret Evans (free, Lowcountry Presbyterian Church of Bluffton)

10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.: Friends of the Beaufort Library Book Sale at Waterfront Park, Beaufort

 

*Register for workshops and virtual events at https://patconroyliterarycenter.eventbrite.com