The holidays are coming and bringing with them a new season of singing! Beaufort Academy is sweetening the 2017 season by presenting to the community its new choral ensembles. Under the direction of Victor Varner (left), Beaufort Academy is hosting a holiday concert featuring the '€œB.A. Blue Notes'€ on Thursday evening, December 7 at St. Johns Lutheran Church on Lady's Island.

'An Evening of Stories & Songs with Lee Smith, Jill McCorkle & Marshall Chapman' will be an unforgettable teaming of three larger-than-life performers, all bringing unique literary gifts to the USCB Center for the Arts stage on Friday, December 15, 6:30 pm. The three women have performed many times together and share an on-stage feel-good collaboration that has been deemed a meeting of 'Dixie divas.'€ As Lee Smith told The Huffington Post, "€œbig hair and a big heart does not mean a small mind."€

The Pat Conroy Literary Center opened its doors to the public in October 2016 during the first annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival. Following a year of robust educational programming in and beyond the Center'€™s home in Beaufort, SC, the American Library Association (ALA) has honored the literary center with a national recognition. At an October 20th reception held during the second annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, executive director Jonathan Haupt announced that the literary center was newly designated as an ALA United for Libraries Literary Landmark, only the second in the state of South Carolina.