Events
CCPL Presents Pat Conroy-Themed Virtual Programs
The Charleston County Public Library and the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will hold two free virtual events about the reading and teaching life of acclaimed southern storyteller Pat Conroy (1945–2016) on September 16th and 21st, 7 pm to 8 pm. Presented by Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt, both programs will be held on Zoom, with advance registration required through the CCPL website.
The schedule is as follows:
- Wednesday, September 16th, 7 pm – 8 pm
- “I Was Born to Be in a Library”: Pat Conroy’s Great Love of Libraries
- Learn more and register at www.ccpl.org/events/i-was-born-be-library-pat-conroys-great-love-libraries-0
- Pat Conroy Literary Center executive director Jonathan Haupt will discuss best-selling author Pat Conroy’s lifelong love of books and libraries—focusing on the roles public libraries, the academic libraries of Beaufort High School and The Citadel, and Pat’s own personal library played in his writing life. The program will also include a discussion of how Pat’s last act as a teacher, his choice of burial site, is also connected to a library, and how the nonprofit Conroy Center honors and continues his legacy as reader, writer, and educator in and beyond his beloved lowcountry. Augmented with photographs as well as published and unpublished writings by and about Conroy, this online presentation welcomes attendees into the book-filled world of one of America’s most beloved writers.
- Monday, September 21st, 7 pm – 8 pm
- Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy
- Learn more and register at www.ccpl.org/events/our-prince-scribes-writers-remember-pat-conroy
- Pat Conroy inspired a worldwide legion of devoted fans numbering in the millions, but none are more loyal to him and more committed to sustaining his literary legacy than the many writers he nurtured over the course of his 50-year writing life. In sharing their stories in the multi-award-winning anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, 67 of his fellow writers honor his memory. Volume co-editor and Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt will discuss Conroy’s legacy as friend, mentor, and champion to his tribe of scribes, with readings from the collection.
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary 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.” Jonathan’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Beaufort Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle magazine, Savannah Morning News’ Beacon magazine, the Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers Magazine’s Suite T blog. He is co-editor with Nicole Seitz of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, the recipient of more than a dozen book awards.