In his 2010 memoir My Reading Life, Pat Conroy shared two fascinating—and seemingly contradictory—metaphors for writerly inspiration: the burning man he encountered in Rome and the tortoises he encountered with writer (and Our Prince of Scribes contributing essayist) Jonathan Carroll in Vienna. We’ll discuss both of those metaphors as instructive examples of how we can turn our memories into our stories. This session will include discussion of the writer’s craft and sources of inspiration as well as interactive writing prompts.

PRESENTER BIOS

 Jonathan Haupt is the executive director of the nonprofit Pat  Conroy Literary Center, South Carolina’s first affiliate of the  American Writers Museum, second American Library  Association Literary Landmark, and TripAdvisor’s top-ranked  destination in Beaufort, South Carolina. Haupt is also the former  director of the University of South Carolina Press, where he  created the Story River Books fiction imprint with the late Pat Conroy. He serves as an associate producer of the SCETV author interview program By the River and hosts the Live from the Pat Conroy Literary Center monthly podcast on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. Haupt’s book reviews and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post and Courier, Savannah Morning News’ Beacon magazine, Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle, Southern Review of Books, and Southern Writers’ Suite T blog. He is co-editor of the award-winning anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy.

The Conroy Center’s communications and events    coordinator, Brooke McKinney is a poet and writer from  South Georgia. She holds an MFA in creative writing  from Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. As a  teaching fellow at Hollins, she led creative writing  workshops in fiction and poetry. McKinney is the recipient of two Academy of American Poets Awards, and she was a finalist in the Key West Emerging Writer’s Contest and the World’s Best Short-Short Story Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New South, Salt Hill Journal, Potomac Review, Southeast Review, RHINO Poetry, Columbia Poetry Review, Artemis, and Kestrel.