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Pat Conroy was born on October 26, 1945, in Atlanta, Georgia. He often credits his southern mother, a native of Alabama, for his love of language.

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, a novelist “who remembered every single violent act…my father’s violence is the central fact of my art and my life.” Since the family had to move many times to different military bases around the South, Pat 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 his first wife. Following the birth of their daughter, the Conroys moved to Atlanta, where Pat wrote his novel, The The Great Santini, published in 1976. The Citadel became the subject of his next novel, The Lord of Disciplines, published in 1980. The novel exposed the school’s harsh military discipline, racism and sexism. This book, too, was made into a feature film.

After a divorce, Pat began anew, remarried and moved from Atlanta to Rome where he began  The Prince of Tides which, when published in 1986, became his most successful book. Since then, he has written the bestselling novel, Beach Music, which established him once and for all as a master of poetic prose. His most recent work, is an autobiography, called The Losing Season.

He currently lives in Fripp Island, South Carolina with his third wife, the novelist Cassandra King.

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