The monthly virtual Open Mic Night is hosted by Brooke McKinney and presented in partnership between the Pat Conroy Literary Center and the South Carolina Writers Association. The featured writer for February is poet and editor Len Lawson.

Melissa will be participating in this Open Mic Night with spoken word from Home Work A Collection of Poems Sparked by One White Woman’s Journey on the Matter of Race.

Join us live on the Conroy Center’s Facebook page for readings by a pantheon of participating writers from in and beyond our South Carolina lowcountry. Thursday, February 10, 2022, 6pm Eastern.

About the featured writer:
Len Lawson is the author of Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019) and the chapbook Before the Night Wakes You (Finishing Line Press, 2017). He is also co-editor of Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017) and The Future of Black: Afrofuturism and Black Comics Poetry (Blair Press, 2021). His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He has received more fellowships from Tin House, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Callaloo, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among others. His poetry appears in African American Review, Callaloo, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and has been translated internationally. Len earned his Ph.D. in English Literature and Criticism at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and is currently Assistant Professor of English at Newberry College.