FESTIVAL WORKSHOP: Walking and Writing: Led by Valerie Sayers

Trying to start or keep a daily writing routine? Find yourself stuck for ideas? Want a new path for your writing? Try writing and walking, the centuries-old practice of meditation in motion. This workshop is open to writers of all genres at all levels, beginning to advanced, and all walking abilities. We’ll hear about the experiences of some well-known walking writers and then we’ll set out, rain or shine, for a twenty-minute walk along the Beaufort Bay (in the event of downpour, we’ll get creative). All participants will set their own paces—this is a no-pressure chance to loosen up our limbs and our language. When we return, we’ll do brief writing exercises to see how the most basic movement has opened our minds.

Part of the 10th annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, this is an in-person writers workshop, held at the Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St, Beaufort). Limited to 14 participants; $50/person.

About our instructor:

Valerie Sayers is the author of six critically-acclaimed novels and a collection of stories, The Age of Infidelity. She’s written hundreds of essays, reviews, and short stories for venues ranging from The New York Times to Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope: All-Story, and taught for almost thirty years at the University of Notre Dame, where she was the Kenan Professor of English. Her literary prizes include a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship and two Pushcart Prizes for fiction. She is honored to be a member of the South Carolina Academy of Writers and a 2025 recipient of the South Carolina Governors Award in the Humanities.

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