I’m honored to have been given the opportunity to contribute an afterword to the anthology The Pulpwood Queens Celebrate 20 Years, forthcoming this December–edited by Susan Cushman with an introduction by Pulpwood Queens founder Kathy L. Murphy and a foreword by Robert Hicks. This collection celebrates the remarkable community of readers and writers at the heart of 20 incredible years of the world’s largest meeting-and-discussing book club, with over 750 clubs internationally. Beyond that, it’s a love letter to the transformative, redemptive power of story to change, challenge, heal, and unite lives. What a joy and a privilege it has been to have an advance look at the heartfelt stories and remembrances in this keepsake volume. I can’t wait for y’all to read them too. Congratulations to all involved in this treasure trove of literary love!
The pantheon of featured writers: Christa Allan, Johnnie Bernhard, Tamra Bolton, Lea Anne Brandon, Missy Buchanan, Julie Perkins Cantrell, Tracy Carnes, Kathryn Casey, Stephanie Chance, Judy Christie, Tim Conroy, Christopher Cook, Michelle Cox, Patricia V. Davis, Sarah Dahman, Jessica Brooks Dougherty, Sharon Lamkin Feldt, Jamie Ford, Joe Formichella, Claire Fullerton, Connor Garrett, Echo Garrett, Peter Golden, Mark Green, Jim Grimsley, Jennie Helderman, Mary Ann Henry, Kathy and Becky Hepinstall, Betty Herndon, Laurel Davis Huber, Suzanne Hudson, Alexandra Jenkins, River Jordan, Cassandra King, Bobbi Kornblit, Betty Hunt Koval, Kacey Kowars, Caroline Leavitt, Marjorie Lewis, Judithe Little, Brenda McClain, Fletcher Hale, Laura Lane McNeal, Susan Marquez, Michael Morris, Jennifer Mueller, Tiajuana Anderson Neel, Janet Oakley, P. Adrianne Pamplin, Susan Peterson, Gregory Phillips, Sandra Phillips, Rickey E. Pittman, Terry Pursell, Alyson Richmond, Paul Roberson, Rebecca Rosenberg, Clare Sera, Brownie Shott and Jonni R. Webb, Shari Stauch, Kathryn Taylor, Heidi Surber Teichgraeber, Helen Thompson, Jo Anne Tidwell, Carolyn Turgeon, Barbara Claypole White, and Reavis Wortham.
— with Susan Peterson and 53 others.
“His wound may have been geography, but his legacy was generosity. That’s the takeaway from this new collection of essays honoring the late Pat Conroy. Novelist Nicole Seitz and Jonathan Haupt, the executive director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, pull together a who’s-who of writers from the Lowcountry and beyond for an ode to the real Prince of Tides… A fitting tribute to a unique, significant writer and man.”—Kirkus Reviews
Before Stephanie Austin Edwards returned to the Lowcountry of South Carolina, and to her love of writing, she had a twenty-two-year career in New York Theater. She now writes fiction and non-fiction, facilitates writers groups, teaches writing workshops, and consults with authors. She is the author of the award-winning novel What We Set in Motion and a contributing writer to Our Prince of Scribes, an anthology about her high school friend, Pat Conroy, and Short Story America VI. Edwards is honored to be part of forwarding the mission of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, where she volunteers and leads writing workshops.
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, where he created the Story River Books fiction imprint with Pat Conroy. With novelist and artist Nicole Seitz, he is co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, awarded a Silver Medal for Best Regional Nonfiction by the Independent Publisher Book Awards. Haupt’s articles, book reviews, and author interviews have appeared in the Charleston Post & Courier, Beaufort Lowcountry Weekly, Beaufort Lifestyle magazine, Pink magazine, Shrimp, Collards & Grits magazine, Fall Lines literary journal, and the Conroy Center’s Porch Talk blog. He serves as an associate producer and consultant to the SCETV author interview program By the River, on the board of directors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors and the Friends of South Carolina Libraries, on the American Writers Museum affiliates steering committee, and on the South Carolina Humanities advisory committee.
David Lauderdale is an award-winning columnist and senior editor for The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette. He is also a contributing writer to the anthologies State of the Heart: South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love and Our Prince of Scribes.
Bren McClain’s debut novel One Good Mama Bone was published by Pat Conroy’s Story River Books and honored with the 2018 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction. The novel was also long-listed for the 2018 Crook’s Corner Book Prize, received a starred review in Booklist, was named a 2017 winter Okra pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA), and selected as the 2018 Pulpwood Queens Book of the Year. A contributing writer to Our Prince of Scribes, McClain is a two-time winner of the South Carolina Fiction Project and the recipient of the 2005 Fiction Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission. She is at work on her next novel, which received the gold medal for the 2016 William Faulkner–William Wisdom Novel-in-Progress.
Kathy L. Murphy is the author of The Pulpwood Queen’s Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life, a licensed cosmetologist, an accomplished visual artist, and the founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club, the largest book club in the U.S., celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019. Kathy and her Pulpwood Queens have been featured on ABC TV’s Good Morning America, and in Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, and LA Times. She is at work on her second book, The Pulpwood Queen Goes Back to School.
“The Shady Ladies” of Jefferson, Texas
Former Executive Director of The Pulpwood Queen Book Club Reading Nation, Tiajuana Anderson Neel
Author, Robert Hicks
Author, Songwriter, Layng Martine Jr.
Author, Cassandra King Conroy
Susan Peterson of Sue’s Reading Neighborhood
Shari Stauch, owner of Main Street Reads
Author, Leila Meacham
Author, Crystal Wilkinson
Author, Kacey Kowars
Author and Shreveport Times Columnist, Judy Christie
Leader of The Pulpwood Queens of Eureka, Kansas, Heidi Surber Teichgraeber
Authors, Suzanne Hudson and Joe Formichella
Kathy L. Murphy, Founder of The Pulpwood Queen Book Club Reading Nation
Musical artist and actress, Hannah Howard.
