The 10th annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival will host National Book Award winner Jason Mott, author of “People Like Us,” at 5 p.m., Friday, Oct. 24, at the Beaufort County Black Chamber of Commerce in conversation with Conroy Center executive director Jonathan Haupt and Battery Creek High School students Emily Alaia and Hernando Rizo, hosts of the “DAYLO on the Air” podcast.
A selection of the Late Show Book Club, “People Like Us” was also named one of USA Today’s 15 Books You Should Read this Summer, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Hot New Summer Reads, one of People’s Most Anticipated Summer Books, and one of Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2025.
Mott has published four novels. His first novel, “The Returned,” was a New York Times bestseller and was turned into a TV series that ran for two seasons. He has a BFA in fiction and an MFA in poetry, both from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. His poetry and fiction have appeared in various literary journals, and his novel “Hell of a Book” was named the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction in 2021.
— Staff reports
