Conroy, Patricia

Pat Conroy was born on October 26, 1945, in Atlanta, Georgia, to a young career military officer from Chicago and a Southern beauty from Alabama, whom Pat often credits for his love of language. He was the first of seven children. His father was a violent and abusive man, a man whose biggest mistake, Conroy once said, was allowing a novelist to grow up in his home. Since his family had to move many times to different military bases around the South, Conroy changed schools frequently, finally attending the Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina, upon his father's insistence. While still a student, he wrote and then published his first book, The Boo, a tribute to a beloved teacher. After graduation, Conroy taught English in Beaufort, where he met and married a young woman with two children, a widow of the Vietnam War. He then accepted a job teaching underprivileged children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island off the South Carolina shore. After a year, Conroy was fired for his unconventional teaching practices - such as his refusal to allow corporal punishment of his students - and for his personal differences with the school's administration. Conroy evened the score by exposing the racism and appalling conditions his students endured with the publication of The Water is Wide in 1972. The book won Conroy a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and was made into the feature film Conrack, starring Jon Voight. Following the birth of a daughter, the Conroys moved to Atlanta, where Pat wrote his novel, The Great Santini, published in 1976. This autobiographical work, later made into a film starring Robert Duvall, explored the conflicts of the author's childhood, particularly his ambivalent love for an abusive and often dangerous father. The publication of a book that so painfully exposed his family's secret brought Conroy a period of tremendous personal desolation. This crisis resulted not only in his divorce, but the divorce of his parents; his mother presented a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as "evidence" in divorce proceedings against his father. Conroy remarried and moved from Atlanta to Rome, where he began The Prince of Tides, which, when published in 1986, became his most successful book. Reviewers immediately acknowledged Conroy as a master storyteller and a poetic and gifted prose stylist. This novel has become one of the most beloved novels of modern time; with over five million copies in print, it has earned Conroy an international reputation. The Prince of Tides was made into a highly successful feature film directed by and starring Barbra Streisand, as well as actor Nick Nolte, whose brilliant performance won him an Oscar nomination. Pat Conroy website. (http://patconroy.com/about.php) Retrieved 12/7/2009.

Donald Patrick Conroy was born in Atlanta in 1945, but spent his earlier years moving around the South with his family because his father was in the Marine Corps. He graduated from John C. Calhoun High in Beaufort, South Carolina, and graduated from the Citadel in 1967. He attempted a teaching career, but shortly thereafter turned to writing. Conroy is known for his autobiographical works, which tend to follow his early years and maturation in the coastal regions of South Carolina. He finally achieved widespread success with his publication of PRINCE OF TIDES and has had several book turned into films.

Novelist, native of South Carolina.

Mr. Townsend founded Atlanta magazine in 1961. He also founded city magazines in New Orleans and Cincinnati and was consulted on at least 30 others, leading Time magazine to label him ''the father of city magazines in America.'' Mr. Townsend, who grew up in Lanett, Ala., and moved to Atlanta when he was 16, also edited and published the now-defunct Georgia magazine. At the time of his death, he was associate editor of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution's Sunday magazine. In an early column reprinted in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution yesterday, Mr. Townsend described himself as ''an old con who has heard just about every story a man ever believed, and had believed every one of them himself.'' New York Times Obituary Column, April 7, 1981 http://www.nytimes.com (Retrieved May 18, 2009)

Contemporary southern author Pat Conroy has written a number of highly popular books, including The Water Is Wide, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, and Beach Music. Conroy also has achieved considerable success as a screenwriter. He is the author or coauthor of several Hollywood and television scripts, most notably the film adaptations of his own novels, the Prince of Tides and Beach Music. Beginning with the publication of The Water Is Wide in 1972, Conroy produced a succession of critically acclaimed works, many of which have been adapted into popular and commercially successful motion pictures. In 1999 Conroy was presented with the inaugural Stanley W. Lindberg Award (named for Georgia Review editor Stanley Lindberg) for significant contributions to the literary heritage of Georgia. He was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2005. These literary and film successes, however, have not always been accompanied by personal happiness. His life has been marked by conflicts with his parents and siblings, as well as by two divorces. Pat Conroy (b. 1945) - New Georgia Encyclopedia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved March 10, 2009)