William P. Baldwin

The South Carolina Academy of Authors (SCAA), in partnership with the Pat Conroy Literary Center, will hold its biennial induction weekend in Beaufort this May 3-5. The weekend includes author presentations, readings, and book signings—with its main event being a ticketed SC literary hall of fame induction dinner on Saturday, May 4, at 5:30 p.m., at the Beaufort Holiday Inn & Suites Conference Center (2225 Boundary St.) Buffet dinner with cash bar; tickets are $55 in advance.

This year’s honorees are Marcus Amaker, William P. Baldwin, Harlan Greene, and the late Ann Head.

Marcus Amaker served as the first Poet Laureate of Charleston from 2016 to 2022. In 2019, he was honored with a Governor’s Arts award in South Carolina and was named the artist-in-residence of the Gaillard Center, a world-renowned performance and education venue. His tenth book is Hold What Makes You Whole. (Amaker is unable to attend the dinner and will appear in a video acceptance.)

Lowcountry native William P. Baldwin is being recognized for his work in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. His

Ann Head

best-known novel, The Hard to Catch Mercy, was awarded the Lillian Smith Book Award. Most recently, he has published The Unpainted South: Carolina’s Vanishing World, a collection of songs, photographs, and poems, as well as the novel Charles Town.

Harlan Greene has written both fiction and nonfiction, with a focus on Charleston. As an archivist and historian, he has worked to save and interpret the literary heritage of the state. His most recent work, The Real Rainbow Row: Explorations in Charleston’s LGBTQ History was published in 2022.

The SCAA will be posthumously celebrating fiction writer Ann Head (1915-1968). She published several novels as well as over 50 short stories and novelettes in major magazines both here and abroad. Her most famous, Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones, was made into a TV movie and stayed in print for four decades. Head was also the first creative writing mentor to Pat Conroy (1945-2016), who was himself inducted into the literary hall of fame in 1988. (Head will be represented by her daughters Nancy Thode and Stacey Ahner.)

For a full schedule of the SCAA induction weekend’s free and ticketed events, and to register in advance for the May 4 SC hall of fame dinner in Beaufort, please visit:
https://scaa2024inductionweekend.eventbrite.com