Walter Edgar's Journal

- All Stations: Fri, Oct 31, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Nov 2, 2014 -

Deb Richardson-Moore, a middle-aged suburban mom and journalist was inspired to become a pastor after writing a story exploring God’s call in our lives. Seven years ago, a recent graduate of Erskine Theological Seminary, she took a position as pastor of the non-denominational Triune Mercy Center, an inner-city mission to the homeless in Greenville, S.C. “What I found there absolutely flattened me,” she says. It also inspired her. Today, she and a dedicated staff continue to build a worshiping community that focuses on drug rehab, jobs and housing for the homeless. (Originally broadcast 12/13/13)

In The Hurricane Sisters (2014, Harper Collins), Dorothea Benton Frank again takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-aged and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.

All Stations: Fri, Oct 3, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, Oct 5, 4 pm

(Originally broadcast 04/18/14) - In his 2013 memoir, The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and his Son, author Pat Conroy admits that his father, Don, is the basis of abusive fighter pilot he created for the title role of his novel, The Great Santini, and that his mother, Peg, and his brothers and sisters have all served as models for characters in The Prince of Tides and his other novels. Now, for the first time, Pat gathers with four of his surviving siblings, Kathy, Tim, Mike, and Jim, to talk about the intersection of “real life” and Pat’s fiction, and what it was like to grow up with “the Great Santini” as a father.

(Originally broadcast 04/04/14) - Pat Conroy, author of The Water is Wide, The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, The Death of Santini, joins Dr. Walter Edgar for an event celebrating the author’s life; his work; and One Book, One Columbia’s 2014 selection, My Reading Life (Nan A. Talese, 2010). The conversation was recorded before an audience of over 2000, at Columbia’s Township Auditorium, on the evening of February 27, 2014.

All Stations: Fri, 09/12/14, 12 pm | News Stations: Sun, 09/14/14, 4 pmWalter Edgar's Journal:

(Originally Broadcast 02/28/14) - Begun as an open letter to strangers and fellow misfits, The Minus Times grew to become a hand-typed literary magazine that showcased the next generation of American fiction. Contributors include Sam Lipsyte, David Berman, Patrick DeWitt, and Wells Tower, with illustrations by David Eggers and Brad Neely as well as interviews with Dan Clowes, Barry Hannah, and a yet-to-be-famous Stephen Colbert. With sly humor and striking illustrations, The Minus Times has earned a fervent following as much for its lack of literary pretension as its sporadic appearances on the newsstand. All thirty of the nearly-impossible-to-find issues of this improvised literary almanac are now assembled for the first time, typos and all, in The Minus Times Collected, by Hunter Kennedy (Featherproof Books, 2012).

Dr. Melissa Walker is the author of numerous books on the Civil War and is co-editor of Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War (USC Press, 2011). She talks with Dr. Walter Edgar about the role of “plain folk”—especially women—during the war.

In May of 2013, a one-story, rectangular, weatherboard-clad, 19th-century slave cabin was dismantled at the Point of Pines Plantation on Edisto Island, SC, and transferred to the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, DC. The reconstructed cabin will be on view in the “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition when the museum opens in 2015.

(Broadcast August 23, 2013) - In April of 2013, an Army veteran from South Carolina returned to Okinawa, Japan, for the first time since he fought there in World War II. Retired Col. Ted Bell, 93, went back to the island after more than 67 years, this time with a film crew for South Carolina ETV, shooting part of the upcoming documentary, Man and Moment: Ted Bell and the Ridge.

(Broadcast November 02, 2012) - The Emmy-nominated documentary television series (produced in partnership by ETV and The State newspaper), South Carolinians in World War II, returns to ETV November 8th with its latest episode, A World War. Joining Dr. Edgar to talk about this episode, and the war, are John Rainey, co-creator of the series; Wade Sellers, series director; and The State's Jeff Wilkinson, series producer.

(Broadcast November 04, 2011) - About 184,000 South Carolinians served in World War II, and thousands more, who moved here after the war. ETV and The State newspaper partnered together to tell the stories of these veterans in their own words. The result is a new Emmy-nominated documentary series, South Carolinians in World War II.

(Broadcast May 20, 2011) - 184,000 South Carolinians served in World War II. South Carolinians in WWII is ETV's 3-part series that tells the story of some of these veterans. Series co-executive producer John Rainey and producer/director Jeff Wilkinson will join Dr. Edgar to talk tell some of the extraordinary stories of South Carolinians in World War II and talk about the series' second episode. A New Front covers the period from Italy's Monte Cassino to D-Day as well as the buildup in Britain, doctors and nurses, and the Charleston Navy Yard.

(Originally broadcast 03/06/2009) - On November 16th, 2008, a dream came true for Columbia restaurateur Bill Dukes as he and about 90 World War II veterans began a flight to Washington, DC, to see the WWII Memorial. For many of the veterans, a visit to the Memorial, dedicated in 2004, was something they would probably never have dreamed of, much less done. Honor Flight South Carolina is a non-profit organization dedicated to flying South Carolina WWII vets to see “their monument,” free of charge.