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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Maura Connelly / 843-379-7025maura@patconroyliterarycenter.orgThe Conroy Center and the Anchorage 1770 Inn to Hosta Southern Living Inspired Event: Cook the BookWith James Beard Award-winning Chef and Cookbook Author Cynthia GraubartBEAUFORT, SC - Southern Living, the Pat Conroy Literary Center, and the Anchorage 1770Inn are excited to announce the first Cook The Book: Sharing Recipes, Wine & Words, aspecial event to be held Saturday, May 19, from 4:00%u20139:00 p.m. at the Anchorage 1770(1103 Bay St., Beaufort, SC). The inaugural Cook the Book will be presented by renownedsouthern chef Cynthia Graubart, and will focus on recipes from her recent cookbook SundaySuppers (2017). The event has three components: Cynthia will give a cooking demonstrationof three recipes from Sunday Suppers assisted by Anchorage chef Byron Landis, followed bya book and apron signing with wine and appetizers on the veranda, and culminating with afour-course dinner complete with hand-selected wine pairings in the dining room.This new venture was inspired by Pat Conroy%u2019s passion for cooking and his perennial searchfor a new recipe. Pat opens his 2004 cookbook with the words, %u201cThe subject of food isnearly a sacred one to me.%u201d His lifelong passion for cooking was first ignited in 1969 andonly became more intense as he grew older. Many of his readers are familiar with anotherquote from his cookbook, %u201ca recipe is a story that ends with a good meal.%u201dCynthia Graubart is an ideal chef to launch the new Cook the Book series, which celebratesfoodways, writing, and fellowship. When Pat first began cooking in earnest, he turned toCynthia%u2019s husband Cliff for guidance. It was 1969 and Pat%u2019s first wife had appointed himfamily chef. He ventured to the Old New York Bookshop in Atlanta, asking for Graubart%u2019shelp. According to Pat%u2019s recollections, Cliff, fearing the Conroy clan demise by starvation,handed Pat an edition of Auguste Escoffier%u2019s cookbook. And so Pat%u2019s culinary adventuresbegan, and he became the epicurean %u2018magician%u2019, the soup %u2018sorcerer%u2019, turning %u201cthe art ofstealing recipes into both a hobby and an art.%u201dCynthia%u2019s newest cookbook, Sunday Suppers extols the virtues of the Sunday supper. Shesays the Sunday %u2018supper%u2019 was different than the Sunday %u2018dinner%u2019, a little less formal, butalways just as comforting because it%u2019s always about family time spent at the dining table. InGothictown Author Emily Carpenter at the Conroy Center, April 17T he nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with novelist Emily Carpenter, author of the newly published novel Gothictown, in conversation with Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt. Free and open to the public, this author event will be held on Thursday, April 17, at 5:00 p.m., at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort). Books will be available for sale and signing through NeverMore Books. Seating is limited; please call to reserve a seat in advance: 843-379-7025.ABOUT THE BOOK AND AUTHOR %u201cA high-energy read that effortlessly reinvents the modern Gothic while delivering all the elements that make the genre so captivating: a haunting atmosphere, a dark legacy, a determined heroine and a whisper of horror. I love the Gothic and I love Gothictown.%u201d %u2014Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author In an immersive Southern Gothic novel with echoes of Shirley Jackson%u2019s The Lottery and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, a restauranteur lured by pandemic-era incentives moves her family to a seemingly idyllic small town in Georgia, only to discover a darkness lurking beneath the Southern hospitality and sun-dappled streets. The email that lands in Billie Hope%u2019s inbox seems like a gift from the universe. For $100, she can purchase a spacious Victorian home in Juliana, Georgia, a small town eager to boost its economy in the wake of the pandemic. She can leave behind her cramped New York City rental and the painful memories of shuttering her once thriving restaurant and start over with her husband and her daughter. Plus, she%u2019ll get a business grant to open a new restaurant in a charming riverside community laden with opportunity. It seems like a dream come true%u2026or a devil%u2019s bargain. A few phone calls and one hurried visit later, and Billie, Peter, and six-year-old Meredith are officially part of the Juliana Initiative. The town is everything promised%u2014two hours northwest of Atlanta but a world away from city living, a %u201cgentle jewel%u201d with weather as warm as its people. Between settling into their lavish home and starting her new restaurant, Billie is busy enough to dismiss any troubling signs. But Billie%u2019s sleep is marred by haunting dreams, and her marriage with Peter is growing increasingly strained. Meanwhile the town elders, all descended from Juliana%u2019s founding families, exert a level of influence that feels less benevolent and more stifling day by day.There%u2019s something about %u201cGentle Juliana%u201d%u2014something off-kilter and menacing beneath that famous Southern hospitality. And no matter how much Billie longed for her family to come here, she%u2019s starting to wonder how, and if, they%u2019ll ever leave. Emily Carpenter is a bestselling author of suspense novels including Burying the Honeysuckle Girls, The Weight of Lies and Gothictown. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, she graduated from Auburn University and worked in New York City as an actor, producer, screenwriter, and behind-the-scenes soap opera assistant for the CBS shows As the World Turns and Guiding Light. She now lives with her family outside Atlanta. Carpenter will be interviewed in her Conroy Center appearance by the Center%u2019s executive director. Jonathan Haupt is co-editor of the anthology Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, winner of 17 book awards. A frequent book reviewer for the Charleston Post and Courier, he is also (with Jennifer Bartell Boykin) colead of the South Carolina chapter of Author Against Book Bans and (with Claire Bennett) co-mentor to the student leaders of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization. To learn more about the Pat Conroy Literary Center, please visit www.patconroyliterarycenter.org. Emily Carpenter46 April 2025 | BeaufortLifestyle.comstory and photos courtesy of PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER