The Pat Conroy Literary Center and NeverMore Books will host Susan Cushman, author of the newly released short story collection Friends of the Library, for a book discussion on Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 5 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the event will be held at NeverMore Books (702 Craven St., Beaufort) and followed by a book signing.
Cushman’s fifth book, Friends of the Library is a collection of linked short stories. When Adele Covington becomes an author in her sixties, she goes on a book tour to speak to the Friends of the Library groups in 10 small towns in her home state of Mississippi.<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp;</span>

Chasing her personal demons through the Christ-haunted South of her childhood, Adele befriends an eclectic group of wounded people and decides to tell their stories. From Eupora to Meridian, from a budding artist with an abusive husband to a seven-year-old with a rare form of cancer, each story contains elements of hope and healing and honors the heart, soul, and history of the Magnolia State.

Author<span class="Apple-converted-space">&nbsp; </span>Cassandra King Conroy called the book, “A beautifully wrought hymn of praise to readers and book-lovers in the most sacred of places, the libraries where we find both.”

Cushman is the author of the novel Cherry Bomb and the memoir Tangles and Plaques: A Mother and Daughter Face Alzheimer's, as well as editor of two anthologies, A Second Blooming: Becoming the Women We Are Meant to Be and Southern Writers on Writing. She lives in Memphis with her husband.