By Margaret Evans, Editor

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to speak at an event being hosted by a local civic group later this month. A “post-election” event, specifically. The plan, she said, was to help our community heal, rebuild relationships and make new connections after this horrific election season. (No pressure, right?) The theme of my talk was to be “forgiveness and unity,” a topic upon which I have zero authority to speak. Fortunately, I was unavailable on the date they had in mind.

            Unfortunately, they changed the date.

(Writer’s note: It seems a few short weeks ago when we were all freaking out about the clowns. Some may say the ones running for office, but I am talking about the weird clown sightings from the edges of stark, empty woodland bends, others close to lamp-lit neighborhoods luring children in with candy, scaring the bejeezes out of everyone in full-on clown make-up and parachute pants. Then, Matthew came along and turned everything we knew as normal upside down, inside out.

By Margaret Evans, Editor

For this issue, I had planned to write about A Lowcountry Heart, the wondrous new collection of essays by the late Pat Conroy. (After almost six months, that phrase still looks outrageous to me in print. “The late Pat Conroy.” Every fiber of my being resists that sequence of words.)

         This compilation of never-before-published letters, speeches, journal entries and blog musings is making its debut this weekend at the inaugural Pat Conroy Literary Festival here in Beaufort, and it seemed like a natural column topic.