Welcome to Litsy!

Two lasting legacies from grad school besides my degree are my love for Pat Conroy & Margaret Atwood. We read Prince of Tides for a family violence class. His books are heartbreaking but beautiful. This book is full of essays eulogizing Conroy & his legacy. I learned a lot about him, but it‘s not a bio. It did give me the travel bug to return to Beaufort, SC because I didn‘t know about his Literary Center when I was there the first time.

I enjoyed the book fair today, even though I had limited time before going to a gender reveal party for my cousin (it‘s a girl). I spent more $ than at previous fairs, but they had a lot to choose from this yr. 🤷‍♀️
My parents, sister, I will all have a book for Christmas this year. I bought my mom the Christmas stories one, we got my sister The Pearl Brooch, & parents got me the tagged book. We got Dad one about a Ky WW1 veteran (he likes hx).

If you like Pat Conroy, you‘ll probably like this collection of essays written after his death by writers who knew him. Of course, they write in glowing terms about him, but many of the essays also touch on less flattering aspects of his personality .

In an inscription in a journal he gave his brother, Tim, Pat Conroy says this: “You‘ve got to write down what you think or you never hear what you are trying to say.” I‘ve always believed that and it‘s what I used to teach my students when I taught English — that writing has the power to clarify your thought; that you never know what you truly think until you‘ve written it.

I had a conference in Greenville last week and one in Charleston next week. In between, we decided to go to Beaufort to go to the Pat Conroy Literary Center. Guess what‘s going on this whole weekend? The Pat Conroy Literary Festival! So we attended it today and went to the center. We‘ll probably attend some sessions tomorrow too. 😊

I'm loving this collection of writers celebrating Conroy's life with their favorite memories of the legendary Southerner.