FESTIVAL WORKSHOP: The Thriller Writer's Playbook with John Hart

The Thriller Writer’s Playbook: A Writing Workshop Led by Bestselling Author John Hart, with Sean A. Scapellato

Ever want to know how the pros get from the idea to the published novel? Come find out when John Hart, in an exclusive Pat Conroy Literary Festival workshop, shares where ideas come from, how research happens, and how he has developed a routine and writing process that works for his creative life. He will discuss the arc of his career and the unorthodox path to success, his friendships with Pat Conroy and John Grisham, and how he’s made it through the COVID years--with a new project scheduled for 2026.

Part of the 10th annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, this is an in-person writers workshop, held at the Pat Conroy Literary Center (601 Bladen St, Beaufort). Limited to 14 participants; $75/person.

About our instructors:

John Hart is the New York Times bestselling author of The King of Lies, Down River, The Last Child, Iron House, Redemption Road, The Hush, and The Unwilling. The only author in history to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel consecutively, John has also won the Barry Award, the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Award for Fiction, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His novels have been translated into thirty languages and can be found in more than seventy countries.

Sean A. Scapellato is a former English teacher, and now-practicing attorney in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Chair of the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s board of directors and a contributing writer to Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, Sean was a runner-up in the Novello Festival Press's First Novel contest and was published in that press’s anthology Hungry for Home. He also was a winner/finalist in TBS's My South Speaks (televised) and Listen to Your Mother where he performed original essay compositions about the South and his wonderful mom. He continues to write novels and teach workshops.

Host or Publisher Pat Conroy Literary Center Inc.