Jessica Goody
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center is open to the public for docent-guided tours from Thursday through Sunday, noon to 4:00 p.m. The Conroy Center also hosts a variety of educational programs throughout the year for writers, readers, teachers, and students. In August, the Center will host two virtual programs, accessible remotely.
Thursday, August 8, 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
The Conroy Center’s monthly Open Mic Night will be held virtually this month, with featured poet Jessica Goody, author of Phoenix: Transformation Poems. Open Mic will also feature short readings of 3 to 5 minutes each by other writers in many genres. Writers interested in reading from their work on Zoom should register in advance by emailing contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org. Those interested in watching the Open Mic readings can do so via the live-stream on the Conroy Center’s Facebook page, beginning shortly after 6:00 p.m. that evening. Open Mic will be hosted by poet Melissa St. Clair.
About Our Featured Writer: Jessica Goody is the award-winning author of Defense Mechanisms (Phosphene Publishing, 2016) and Phoenix: Transformation Poems (CW Books, 2019). Her writing has appeared in over one hundred publications, including The Wallace Stevens Journal, Reader’s Digest, Phantom Drift, The High Window, Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Seventh Wave, Third Wednesday, The MacGuffin, Harbinger Asylum, and The Maine Review. Defense Mechanisms was chosen as a “Power Read” by Hilton Head Monthly, a Book of the Month by The Creativity Webzine, and received an Honorable Mention for the 2020 North Street Book Prize. Jessica has facilitated poetry slams and taught writing courses for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USC Beaufort. A freelance journalist, she has been a contributing writer for Hilton Head Monthly, The Bluffton Sun, SunSations, Local Life and Bluffton Today. Jessica is the winner of the 2016 Magnets and Ladders Poetry Prize. Her poem “Beachcombing” was recently added to the Hilton Head Poetry Trail.
Wednesday, August 14, 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Award-winning author Amber Wheeler Bacon will lead an online workshop, Expose & Compose, using photographs as creative writing prompts: Author
Amber Wheeler Bacon
Donna Baier Stein said that writers can use photography to “expand… meaning—not in terms of enlarging [an] original work, but in terms of offering more possibilities.” In this workshop, participants use a combination of professional and amateur photography, including family photos, in conversation with poems and short prose to generate creative new work. The workshop will include 4 prompts, so students are encouraged to come to this class ready to write. All genres welcome. This virtual workshop will be held via Zoom, limited to 15 participants, $45/person. Please register in advance at https://patconroyliterarycenter.eventbrite.com
About Our Instructor: Amber Wheeler Bacon is a writer and teacher whose work has appeared in Crazyhorse, Ecotone, Epiphany, Five Points, Prairie Schooner and Witness. You can find her writing online at Ploughshares and CRAFT. She’s the recipient of the 2018 Breakout Writers Prize sponsored by The Author’s Guild and a 2021 Bread Loaf scholarship. She received the 2022 Lit/South Award for flash fiction, a 2023 Prairie Schooner Award and was a finalist for the 2023 Chautauqua Janus Prize, nominated by Ecotone Magazine. Amber has an MFA from Bennington College and teaches English at Coastal Carolina University. She’s been a fiction editor at Four Way Review, Managing Editor for South Carolina Writers Association publications and a daily editor at the Southern Review of Books.
Learn more about the Pat Conroy Literary Center at www.patconroyliterarycenter.org.
