Immigration has been a controversial topic for many years, some would say forever, here and abroad. Having studied the Greek immigrants in his own family for his memoir, Because Memory Isn’t Eternal, and having talked to readers about their families, Deno Trakas will share his fascination with and understanding of the triumphs and travails of immigration … Read more
Novelist Sterling Watson calls my book “a taut page-turner about love and death on the dark side of international education” featuring a “forbidden affair of an American professor and his sultry Iranian student, the Hitchcockian suspense of men and women on the run for their lives in the world’s most dangerous places, and a cast … Read more
Marguerite A. LeHand worked for President Roosevelt for more than 20 years as his private secretary, counselor, confidante and friend. In this presentation, Smith wears period costume and speaks with Missy’s Boston accent about her time with FDR. Mid-talk, she removes Missy’s hat, tells “the rest of the story,” and takes questions from the audience … Read more
(All Ages)This poetry reading and performance will present a variety of original poems that will appeal to a broad audience on themes related to South Carolina. These poems are family friendly and entertaining to all ages. Audiences will enjoy crowd favorites such as Simms’ Turner Speaks My South poem “My South’s Boys” and her inspirational … Read more
(Grades 4 -12 OR Adults.)This reading, led by poet Kimberly Simms, connects audiences to the excitement of contemporary poetry. Kimberly Simms will share a variety of original and well-known engaging poems that explore the life and history of South Carolina. Kimberly Simms has garnered recognition for her poetry not only from esteemed literary journals, but … Read more
When writer/editor Aïda Rogers asked other writers in South Carolina to write about the one place in the state that means the most to them, what she got was … complicated. And what love isn’t? South Carolina’s many conflicting characteristics have marked its many writers, whether their genres are poetry or fiction, journalism or history. … Read more
An illustrated, candid talk takes the audience back to 1950’s rural Georgia where Tom recalls momentous times hanging out at the local Confederate monument, days playing football, and summers on his granddad’s farm. It was there he spent days with his childhood best friend, Jesse Lee “sweetie Boy” Elam, a black boy. Neither had any … Read more
(An illustrated talk) Tom brings back the Sunday drive with memories and sights to be seen today. Times were mom, dad and the kids would head out to see the countryside. Back in the Burma-Shave days, mom-and-pop drive-ins and gas station biscuits fed folks. Cheap gas filled cars, and people made Sunday drives through a … Read more
An illustrated talk based on Tom’s book, Carolina Bays: Wild, Mysterious, and Majestic Landforms, published by the USC Press … From Woods Bay State Park to Carolina bays in the coastal plain, Savannah River Site, Georgia, and North Carolina, Tom takes the audience on a journey to unique landforms some once believed a meteorite bombardment … Read more
