“The South Carolina Literary Tour,” designed to look like a foldable road map, features about 200 authors from each of the state’s 46 counties. The Palmetto Book Alliance, co-sponsored by USC’s School of Library and Information Science in the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies and the S.C. State Library, published the map last spring for distribution at welcome centers, schools, and libraries. Graduate students in the school also have created an electronic map online to complement the print version.

“A research committee worked for about two- and-a-half years to gather every single name we could and as much information as possible,” said Pat Feehan, an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science and one of the coordinators of the project. “Our criteria included any writer who was born in South Carolina, wrote about South Carolina, or had a connection to South Carolina

“The idea was that academics could pick up the map and say, ‘Wow, look at this. I didn’t know South Carolina had all these historians and journalists and African-American authors. And families could pick up the map and find an extensive list of children’s authors. They might say, ‘Look, here’s Betsy Byars. Hey, kids, we just read the Betsy Byars books. She’s from the Upstate and has won awards for her literature.’”

The front of the map, which can be hung as a wall poster, features the names of some of the state’s most well-known writers—Pat Conroy, Josephine Humphreys, Dori Sanders—and notes their genres or influences.

The back of the map lists authors county-by-county and includes birth and death dates and a scattering of photographs and literary quotes. “Tom Johnson from the South Caroliniana Library worked to make sure every county is represented,” Feehan said. “It’s very thorough.”

The back also includes separate lists for writers of literature for children and youth, African-American writers, and dramatists writing for stage, screen, radio, and television.
“This had never been done before,” Feehan said. “It’s like ‘one-stop shopping’ for literary information.”

Liz Qunell, Information Resources consultant, and students in the School of Library and Information Science maintain the online map, which features more detailed information about many of the authors with links to their homepages, biographies, photographs, publishers, and lists of works. To visit the online map, go to www.scpalmettobookalliance.org.

“The online map is a work in progress,” Feehan said. “We can keep it up-to-date and inclusive as we add new names.”

The literary map committee included several USC faculty and staff members. Johnson and Dianne Johnson, English, volunteered as scholars-advisors, gathering biographical information about the authors. Bob Ellis, Institute for Southern Studies; Camille McCutcheon, coordinator for library instruction, USC Spartanburg; and Laura Zaidman, a retired English professor from USC Sumter, consulted on the project.

“I think we fulfilled our goal of making it every person’s map,” Feehan said. “It’s about cultural pride, too, gathering all of our literary heritage together in one place in two formats. We’re saying, ‘Hey, world, you probably didn’t know that we have so many great authors in our state.’”

06/03