CONROY CENTER 2025 WRITER'S RESIDENCY

Remember this? 

 https://www.kayebarleymeanderingsandmuses.com/2023/08/me-writer-in-residence.html

A dream come true for me.

And now it's someone else's turn -

 

Shared from The Pat Conroy Literary Center Facebook Page:

CONROY CENTER 2025 WRITER'S RESIDENCY

The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will offer our next Conroy Center Writer's Residency this October 22-29, coinciding with the 10th annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival. Located on a salt marsh, the residency at MarshSong Cottage provides an inspirational, creative space in the heart of Pat Conroy’s beloved lowcountry. The application period is now open, concluding on August 11. See details at https://conta.cc/4lgwovN (copied below)

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Conroy Center Writer's Residency, Fall 2025 ~ Open to Writers in All Prose Genres | Deadline: August 11 ~ “As was customary in their nineteen years of marriage, he left the grits on his plate untouched, an unexpressed but articulate declaration, rooted in geography, that the society he married into had not assimilated him. All the totems of Bull’s disenchantment with the South could be carved from pillars of congealed grits. Since they had married, it was a point of honor between them that Lillian serve grits and Bull refuse to eat them. What had begun as a joke between them had become a resolute ceremony fraught with competition and even with something deeper, something almost mythological that separated them.”—Pat Conroy, The Great Santini  WELCOME TO MARSHSONG COTTAGE Coinciding with the annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will offer our next Conroy Center Writer's Residency this coming fall, available to writers of all prose genres. Located on a salt marsh, the residency at MarshSong Cottage provides an inspirational, creative space in the heart of Pat Conroy’s beloved lowcountry. The residency location is a guest cottage on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, approximately 15 minutes from downtown Beaufort and 15 minutes from the beach at Hunting Island State Park. The residency dates will be October 22 to 29, 2025, overlapping with the 10th annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, which the selected writer will be invited to attend. TO APPLY FOR THE WRITER'S RESIDENCY Please submit the following by August 11, 2025, to contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org with the subject line CONROY CENTER WRITER'S RESIDENCY:  1) Grits or no grits? Are you Team Lillian or Team Bull? In 300 words or less—and in any form of writing you choose, tell us about your relationship with grits. Love them? Hate them? Have a favorite recipe or grits-flavored story?  2) Ceremony and mythology: Tell us about something of grand importance to your family or circle of friends which was treated as a kind of ceremony or mythology unique to your experiences. Got a tradition, custom, ritual, or habit that is idiosyncratic? Do tell—in 300 words or less and in any form of writing you choose.  3) Who are you? Send us a short bio, along with your contact information, up to 100 words, in first person prose please. 4) Do you have a favorite Pat Conroy book? If so, tell us which one, and why. Don’t have a favorite Conroy book? Then tell us which book by another author is closest to your heart and why in about 50 words. 5) How did you learn about this residency? Short answers welcome! 6) Finally, let’s have a look. Include a writing sample of your work, 3 – 5 double-spaced pages of prose in 12 pt Times New Roman or similar font. Attached to your email as PDF, please! Completing all sections of the application as directed is essential. Incomplete applications will not be considered for the residency. Submissions will be reviewed by a panel of Conroy Center advisors. The selected writer will be notified by September 1. The residency is open to both published and unpublished writers. If you have applied before but not been selected, we encourage you to apply again. Pat Conroy was a mentor to writers in all stages of their careers and we wish to honor that legacy. ABOUT THE COTTAGE Learn more about MarshSong Cottage here. The selected writer must provide her or his own transportation. Residency is for the writer only; no guests or pets. WRITERS, WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR SUBMISSIONS! Pat Conroy Literary Center | 601 Bladen St, Beaufort, SC 29902 843-379-7025 | contact@patconroyliterarycenter.org View as Webpage

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Renewing your passport

Time to renew your passport?

I recommend doing it on-line.  

Right here - https://www.usa.gov/renew-adult-passport

Warning

Renew early. Passport processing times vary. And some countries and airlines deny entry if your passport expires in less than 6 months.

Even though they're saying there's a 4 - 6 week turn around, mine was in my mailbox in 2 weeks.

I did have to try several times to get a photo that they would deem acceptable, but I was determined and Yay, Me! finally got one that worked, so don't give up.

Nooooo - I'm not sharing a copy of the photo.  Suffice to say it is The. Worst. Picture.  EVER.

Truly.

Here's an interesting article from WSJ about the on-line renewal  -

https://www.wsj.com/business/us-passport-online-renewal-e58b51d1?st=eLG9KM&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Fourth of July

 

With fear for our democracy 

The frail experiment that it was

That boasted Freedom with one hand 

And enslaved with the other 

Oh democracy 

You beautiful lie 

That oppressed hearts 

Have been trying to make true 

Pulling at 

the moral arch of the universe

With all the strength of hope 

Oh democracy 

You ghost 

You phantom 

You pipe dream 

You hallucination 

The truth of you 

Just an apparition 

In men’s hands 

Fly your flags at half-staff today 

You patriots 

Lighting fun sized bombs 

In the streets

To celebrate 

Liberty 

Fly your flags at half-staff 

The democracy 

You barbecue ribs for 

Is on her last breath 

Happy Fourth of July 

#LesléHonoréPoetry #FistAndFire 

#HappyFourth

A few random photos from our trip to Alaska

Did we love it?

We LOVED it!

It was more than I dreamed.

Magical.

Breathtaking.

Yes, we would, given the opportunity, love to go again.

We sailed out of Vancouver on June 6, stopped in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Icy Strait Point, Sitka, Juneau, Valdez, and Seward.

I originally posted these pictures in order from Day One through the end of the trip, but Blogger decided to do things their way, so welcome to a jumble of Alaska pictures including in various ports and on board our Viking Cruise.

A perfect trip.  MUCH better organized than these pics.

These first few photos were taken in one of the several museums we visited.

NO idea why Blogger chose to start off with these instead of leaving them where I placed them.  Harumph.

Me in Valdez with the yard sale suitcase we picked up after deciding to check our bags rather than travel back home with our carry on bags, which was a wise decision for a 20 hour trip home which included a bus ride and three flights before retrieving our car at the Charlotte Airport and the drive home to Boone.

Travel companions we originally met and on our Viking Christmas on The Seine Cruise.

Geri, Anthony, Arleen, Virginia, me and Donald.

Already talking about the next trip.

 

These pictures should have been at the top.

Arrival at Charlotte Airport to begin our latest adventure.

On Board - Yay!!

 My second favorite thing about our cabin.  First fave was our balcony.

Dinner at Manfredi's

Beautiful hand beaded bracelet from a museum gallery.  ❤

Thank you, Don Barley Honey

Tea with Arleen and Virginia

But i had coffee

Met one of Annabelle's distant cousins

There's an eagle perched on the pole, but he wouldn't look at me.

Eagle still won't look at me

On the final leg of our long flight home.

Donald has, of course, very good pictures on his camera.  I will post them here in the coming days.

But today, I rest.