Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, October 5, 2019
Presented by Athens-Clarke County Library, OLLI@UGA and University of Georgia Press
ATHENS, Ga. — The Athens-Clarke County Library joins with OLLI@UGA and the University of Georgia Press to present a panel discussion about beloved writer Pat Conroy on Saturday, Oct. 5, at 2:00 p.m.
Pat Conroy inspired millions of fans worldwide with his many acclaimed novels, including 1976’s The Great Santini, 1980’s The Lords of Discipline, and of course his best known work, The Prince of Tides (1986), among others. While he passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2016, Conroy’s legacy lives on and continues to influence readers and writers alike.
Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, published by University of Georgia Press, compiles the reflections of more than 60 writers who were nurtured and influenced by Conroy over the course of his fifty year writing career. The library joins OLLI@UGA and the University of Georgia Press to host a panel discussion featuring four Georgia-based writers who contributed to the book: Anthony Grooms, Mary Hood, William Walsh and Teresa Weaver. The discussion will be moderated by Jonathan Haupt, coeditor of Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy and executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.
This event is free and open to the public and will take place in the library’s Appleton Auditorium.
About the presenters:
Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, the founding director of the annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, and the former director of the University of South Carolina Press. He serves on the boards of the South Carolina Academy of Authors and the Friends of South Carolina Libraries, as well as on the South Carolina Humanities advisory committee and the American Writers Museum affiliates steering committee. With Charleston novelist Nicole Seitz, he is coeditor of Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy.
Anthony Grooms’s latest novel, The Vain Conversation, was selected by Pat Conroy for his Story River Books imprint for publication in spring 2018. Like much of Grooms’s fiction, The Vain Conversation explores the complexity of race relations in the South during the Jim Crow years. His novel Bombington, set against the civil rights movement, is often taught in high schools and colleges. It was a Washington Post notable book and was chosen as a citywide common read for Washington, DC. His collection of short stories, Trouble No More, has also been widely adopted by teachers. Grooms has twice won the Lillian Smith Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Foundation Award. He holds fellowships from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Fulbright.
Mary Hood is the author of the novel Familiar Heat and three short story collections: How Far She Went (winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and the Southern Review/LSU Short Fiction Award), And Venus Is Blue (winner of the Lillian Smith Award, the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and the Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists Author of the Year Award), and A Clear View of the Southern Sky (winner of the Townsend Prize for Fiction and, for its author, Georgia Author of the Year for Short Stories). Hood’s work has also been honored with the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Robert Penn Warren Award, and a Pushcart Prize. A 2014 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Hood lives and writes in Commerce, Georgia.
William Walsh is the director of the Etowah Valley Writing Program at Reinhardt University and a southern narrative poet in the tradition of James Dickey, David Bottoms, and Fred Chappell. He is a three-time finalist for his novels in the Pirate’s Alley William Faulkner Writing Competition. Walsh is the author of seven books; his most recent collection of poems is Lost in the White Ruins. His work has appeared in Five Points, Flannery O’Connor Review, Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, Poetry Daily, Poets & Writers, Rattle, Shenandoah, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.
Teresa Weaver, a former board member of the National Book Critics Circle, served as the longtime book review editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta magazine. She is the former editorial director for Habitat for Humanity International and is now a development writer for CARE, a global antipoverty nonprofit based in Atlanta.
The Athens-Clarke County Library is located at 2025 Baxter Street, Athens. For more information about this and other library events and services, call (706) 613-3650 or visit www.athenslibrary.org/athens.
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