Novelists Bren McClain and Jon Sealy in virtual conversation
On Wednesday, January 27, at 6:00 p.m., the Pat Conroy Literary Center will host a virtual conversation with fiction writers Bren McClain and Jon Sealy as they discuss South Carolina stories–what they are and aren’t, and the challenge of writing stories that are timely and yet timeless. They will also read from their novels: Bren’s One Good Mama Bone and Jon’s The Merciful. This free program will be moderated by Brooke McKinney, the Conroy Center’s communications and events coordinator.
This program will be presented on Zoom. Register in advance through the Conroy Center Facebook page, www.facebook.com/patconroyliterarycenter, or at https://bit.ly/3qJdMZy. The event will also be livestreamed on the Conroy Center’s Facebook page; no registration reviewed to view.
Bren McClain’s critically acclaimed debut novel, One Good Mama Bone from Pat Conroy’s Story River Books, won the 2017 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction and the 2018 Patricia Winn Award for Southern Literature. It was also named Pulpwood Queen 2017 Book of the Year, a 2017 Great Group Reads by the Women’s National Book Association, a Southeastern Independent Booksellers Association (SIBA) Okra pick, longlisted for SIBA’s Southern Book Prize and a finalist for the 2018 Crook’s Corner Prize. Bren is at work on her next novel, which has already received acclaim as the gold medal winner for the William Faulkner Novel-in-Progress. She is also a contributing essayist to the award-winning
Rhudy & Co. Strategic Communications
Jon Sealy
anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy. A native of Anderson, South Carolina, Bren now lives and writes near Nashville, Tennessee.
Jon Sealy is the author of The Whiskey Baron and The Edge of America. An upstate South Carolina native, he has a degree in English from the College of Charleston and an MFA in fiction writing from Purdue University. His short fiction has appeared in The Normal School, PANK, and The Sun, among other venues, and his nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, The Millions, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Sealy is currently a freelance writer and the publisher of Haywire Books, which has published Patricia Henley, Heather Bell Adams, and Mark Powell. He lives with his family in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia.
Learn more about the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center online at www.patconroyliterarycenter.org or in person at 905 Port Republic Street in downtown Beaufort.
