News Release, St. Mary’s College of Maryland

On August 20, Professor of English Ben Click gave the keynote address for the Conference on Literacy sponsored by the St. Mary’s County Public School System. The title of his talk was “Teachers: Our Best Hope at Raising Literacy Rates.”

Click holds a five-year term as editor of The Mark Twain Annual, published by the Center for Mark Twain Studies in Elmira, New York. This October 4-6, he chairs that Center’s Quarry Farm Symposium: “Mark Twain and Nature,” and in November, the first annual under his editorship will be released.

As the director of the Mark Twain Lecture Series on American Humor and Culture, Click is the invited speaker of the St. Mary’s County Historical Society’s fall meeting. His talk, titled “Mark in Maryland: Twain’s Advice on Cigars, Whiskey and Swearing,” will be given on November 1 in Leonardtown, Maryland.


David M. Higgins II is an award-winning journalist and founder of The Southern Maryland Chronicle. A Baltimore native raised in Southern Maryland, Higgins founded the Chronicle in 2017 and has built it...