With five Academy Award nominations,Green Book is one of 2018’s leading films. Controversial. Does it accurately portray the reality of segregation and a black musician hiring a white driver for a concert series in the South? Did the writers have permission from the musician’s family? Is it another Hollywood “made to make people feel good” drama/comedy? Film critics are asking these and many other questions but, as a local walking tour guide, the film immediately made me ask, Did Beaufort have a Green Book “hotel”? 

Charleston’s Joyce Gilliard Recognized for Career Achievement

Story by Mark Shaffer
Photos courtesy Joyce Gilliard

Even over the phone, Joyce Gilliard comes across as a force of nature. She has to be with a resume like this: 30 years as a professional hairstylist, author, activist, educator, motivational speaker, founder of the SC Hair & Makeup Network and creator of the non-profit iSAFE! TV & FiLM, LLC. And somewhere in there she’s managed to have a family (3 kids), work toward her doctorate in cosmetology and start another book. She’s genuinely flabbergasted at being honored with the Behind the Scenes Award at this year’s Beaufort International Film Festival. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” she says. “It’s crazy.”

The Pat Conroy Literary Center will hold its third annual March Forth day of learning on Sunday, March 3rd, at the Frissell Community House at Penn Center on St. Helena Island, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Commemorating the anniversary of Pat Conroy’s death, March Forth is a day-long embrace of nature, education, and fellowship among writers and readers in the heart of Conroy’s beloved Lowcountry, honoring the author’s last act as a teacher—his burial site on St. Helena Island. 

“Coming South for the first time in the late spring I had a head of full of images of what this place might be like,” writes Jayne Parker in the Artist Statement for her photography exhibit, A Year in the Lowcountry.