The Board of Directors of The Humanities CouncilSC announces that the SCBook Festival, a literary fixture in Columbia since 1997, will change its format for 2016. Funded and organized by The Humanities CouncilSC, the festival will evolve into an exciting new set of literary initiatives that will be available year-round and reach a wide and diverse audience in every corner of South Carolina. South Carolina has a rich literary heritage that The Humanities CouncilSC wants to celebrate and share, and these new programs will expand and diversify literary opportunities in South Carolina.
This new and improved format will include a literary speakers bureau featuring authors and writing instructors who can travel to venues across the state for public programs; a fast-track literary grant opportunity for statewide organizations to request support for new or existing literary programs such as writers series, festivals, conferences, workshops, or artist residencies; and a literary track at the annual South Carolina Humanities Festival, which is hosted in a different town each year. This will ensure that The Humanities CouncilSC fulfills its mission to “enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of all South Carolinians.”
Randy Akers, Executive Director of The Humanities CouncilSC, said: “The SCBook Festival has been a quality annual event connecting readers and writers over the last 19 years, bringing visibility to The Humanities CouncilSC and to Columbia. I am very pleased that the Board of Directors made the difficult yet strategic decision to expand Council literary programming in a new and exciting direction. With a renewed emphasis to serve a diverse statewide audience, including rural communities, the Council will bring some of the best aspects and the creative spirit of the SCBook Festival to a larger number of people year round, rather than one weekend. We will reach people in their own communities and provide opportunities that otherwise would not exist.”
