Festival Highlights

2016 Keynote — The Life and Works of Pat Conroy

Cassandra King Conroy, Rick Bragg and other friends and family will gather to pay a tribute to bestselling and beloved author Pat Conroy as the keynote event at the 2016 Atlanta-Journal Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical.

The Conroy remembrance will kick off the 11th annual festival on Friday, Sept. 2, at 8 p.m. at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University. Conroy died of pancreatic cancer on March 4 at the age of 70.

Family and friends will share special memories of Conroy and read favorite passages from his many books. Those who will participate in special remembrance of this legend in Southern literature will include:

• Cassandra King Conroy, Pat’s wife who is the author of five novels, most recently the critically acclaimed Moonrise.
• The Pulitzer Prize-winning Rick Bragg, whose All Over but the Shouting’ was a New York Times bestseller and a Times’ notable book of the year.
• Noted artist and children’s author Melissa Conroy, Pat’s daughter.
• Award-winning and bestselling novelist Ron Rash, author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Finalist novel Serena.
• Award-winning journalist and family friend Bronwen Dickey, author of Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon.