Bookstores to Honor Pat Conroy With Drive to Fund New Literary Center

Booksellers are encouraged to celebrate the late Pat Conroy during the week of October 24 with in-store and online events and promotions to raise money for the new Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, South Carolina. The weeklong celebration, the brainchild of Wanda Jewell, executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA), is timed to coincide with Conroy’s birthday and with the release of A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life, a new collection of Conroy’s speeches and interviews (Nan A.Talese/Doubleday, October 25).

Pat Conroy

To honor the beloved Southern literary icon, who died on March 4, Conroy’s widow, the novelist Cassandra King, and his longtime agent, Marly Rusoff, joined with family and friends to formulate plans for a nonprofit literary center designed to support emerging authors and to be a haven for book groups and a place to bring readers and writers together in Conroy’s hometown of Beaufort.

“We envision creating a vibrant and connected community of readers and writers by offering engaging author talks and innovative writing workshops, mentorships for young writers, while hosting collaborative exhibits and events, sponsoring poetry readings, finding ways to honor teachers, and also providing resources for teachers and reading groups,” said Rusoff in a statement. The center will also include a small museum where fans can see Conroy’s desk, among other items, on exhibit.

Earlier this year, the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance permanently changed the name of the SIBA Book Awards to The Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. However, Jewell was looking for additional ways to honor the late author who had such warm and supportive relationships with independent bookstores, especially in the South.

“Pat Conroy was huge friend to SIBA for a lot of his writing career,” she said. “His love for SIBA and for booksellers and for reading and writing and books was just huge — as big as his personality.”

Thus began the idea for a “Pat Conroy Week” during which bookstores will host in-store events and promotions to help raise funds to support the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center.

SIBA made the weeklong celebration the focus of a working session at its fall trade show earlier this month. Session moderator Vickie Crafton, the owner of Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, proposed to the 40 booksellers in attendance that independent bookstores do for the new nonprofit center what Pat Conroy did for them. Booksellers’ ideas to raise money for the center during Pat Conroy Week included asking booksellers and customers to post photos of Conroy’s inscriptions in their signed books; hosting a birthday party for Conroy on October 26; and selling raffle tickets for a chance to win a first edition copy of one of Conroy’s books.

SIBA is also sponsoring a contest that allows those who donate $41 or more to the center to be included in a drawing to win the 41 new books that were the finalists and winners of the new Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize. Samples of the brochures detailing this promotion and outlining the vision for the Pat Conroy Literary Center will arrive in the October Red Box sent to ABA member booksellers, said Jewell.

Booksellers are encouraged to set up a Pat Conroy display that includes the printed brochures and copies of A Lowcountry Heart, which brings together interviews, magazine articles, speeches, and letters from Conroy’s long literary career.

Jewell said she will soon send out a list of 70 to 80 authors who have volunteered to make appearances at bookstores during Pat Conroy Week. The list was compiled by University of South Carolina Press Executive Director Jonathan Haupt, the founding director of the Pat Conroy Literary Festival and sponsoring editor of the Story River Books imprint founded by Conroy.

Pat Conroy signs his work during one of his visits to Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

Crafton, who will donate a portion of the entire week’s book sales at Litchfield Books to the center, said she is grateful to Conroy for all the support he gave bookstores like hers and is looking forward to paying it forward the week of October 24.

“When he would come to my store it was the greatest thing on earth,” said Crafton. “The first time he came he started signing at noon and stayed all the way until eight or nine o’clock, when the store closed. We had people lined up outside my door down to the grocery store and into the parking lot; police had to manage the traffic. Every time he came it was the same way.”

“I always have a table at the front of my store designated for his books,” Crafton added. “We have a real following for him in our area. He was much beloved by everybody; the staff loved him. Pat was an unbelievable human being, so kind and funny. He’s just really missed.”

Booksellers with questions about hosting their own Pat Conroy Week events are invited to e-mail Crafton.