May 28, 11:00 a.m.
A VISIT WITH PAT CONROY’S STORY RIVER BOOKS
Featuring Novelists Carla Damron, Ellen Malphrus, Michele Moore, and Eric Morris
Please RSVP to (843) 723-9912 or mstokenberry@charlestonlibrarysociety.org
“Story River Books is a gift to writers and to readers,” said Pat Conroy of his original fiction imprint with the University of South Carolina Press. This special event is your chance to meet four novelists selected by Conroy for publication in Story River Books as they discuss their writing and their remembrances of Conroy himself. Featuring: Carla Damron, author of The Stone Necklace, a novel of recovery and redemption set in contemporary Columbia; Ellen Malphrus, author Untying the Moon, a tale of wanderlust giving way to a lowcountry homecoming; Michele Moore, author of The Cigar Factory, a historical novel of life and labor in the iconic Charleston landmark; and Eric Morris, author of Jacob Jump, a Savannah River adventure testing the bonds of family and friendships.
About the Authors
Sumter native Carla Damron was named the 2014 South Carolina Social Worker of the Year and holds both an M.F.A. in creative writing from Queens University and a master’s degree in social work from the University of South Carolina. Published earlier this year, her Story River Books novel The Stone Necklace is set in contemporary Columbia and was picked as this year’s One Book, One Community “big read” selection for Columbia and the Midlands.
Ellen Malphrus lives and writes in her native Carolina lowcountry and southwest Montana. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Southern Literary Journal, Review of Contemporary Fiction, William and Mary Review, Georgia Poetry Review, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and the anthology Essence of Beaufort and the Lowcountry. She was a student of James Dickey’s and teaches at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. Her first novel Untying the Moon is a vibrant tale of self-discovery, approaching the realms of myth and lore.
Michele Moore is the author of the historical novel The Cigar Factory as well as author and director of its performance reading, “The Sounds of the Cigar Factory,” a 2016 Piccolo Spoleto selection to be performed on May 29 at the Footlight Players Theater. Moore was a 2006 finalist for the Bellwether Prize for Literature. Her creative nonfiction has been broadcast on Georgia Public Radio and published in the Louisville Review, Habersham Review, ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Groundwater, and O, Georgia.
A native of Augusta, Eric Morris is a production designer for the stage and teaches at the University of South Carolina. Morris holds an M.F.A. from Western Illinois University and a B.A from Augusta College.Very loosely based on his own experiences, Morris’s first novel Jacob Jump is set on an eventful trip down the Savannah River from Augusta to the Atlantic, and was published by Story River Books last year.