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Pat Conroy
Born:	October 26, 1945 Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Occupation:	Novelist
Nationality:	American
Writing period:	1970-1990
Genres:	Literary fiction
Debut works:	The Boo
Website:	http://www.patconroy.com/

Pat Conroy (born October 26, 1945 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an Irish-American, New York Times bestselling author who has written several acclaimed novels and memoirs. He was one of seven children born to Marine Colonel Donald Conroy, of Chicago and the former Frances "Peggy" Peek of Georgia.

Conroy's stories have been heavily influenced by his upbringing and by tragedies in his family over the years. His father, a military pilot who flew nuclear weapons, used both physical and psychological violence against his children, and the pain of a youth growing up in such a harsh environment is evident in Conroy's novels, particularly The Great Santini. The military life also pushed the family from post to post, and Conroy claims to have moved 23 times before he was 18. His association with Beaufort, South Carolina began when he was 15 and had already been in two high school elsewhere. As he started again in Beaufort, he determined to change his feeling of rootlessness and make a home for himself in Beaufort.

While living in Orlando, Florida in 1954, Conroy's 5th grade basketball team defeated a team of 6th graders, making the sport his prime outlet for bottled-up emotions for more than a dozen years.

Conroy is a graduate of The Citadel, and his experiences there were the inspiration for two of his best-known works The Lords of Discipline and My Losing Season. The latter details his senior year on the school's underdog basketball team that managed to win the longest game in the history of college basketball against rival Virginia Military Institute in quadruple overtime in 1967.

After graduating from the Citadel, Conroy taught English in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he met and married a young woman with two children, a widow of the Vietnam War. He then accepted a job teaching children in a one-room schoolhouse on remote Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

Conroy was fired at the conclusion of his first year of teaching on the island for his unconventional teaching practices, including his refusal to use corporal punishment on students, and for his lack of respect for the school's administration.

Conroy wrote his book The Water Is Wide based on his experiences as a teacher. The book won Conroy a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and was made into a feature film, Conrack, starring Jon Voight in 1974. Hallmark produced a television version of the book in 2006. The Great Santini was made into a film of the same name in 1979, starring Robert Duvall.

Publication of The Lords of Discipline in 1980 outraged many of his fellow graduates of The Citadel, who felt his thinly-veiled portrayal of campus life was highly unflattering. The rift was not healed until 2000, when Conroy was awarded an honorary degree and asked to deliver the commencement address the following year. And, somewhat ironically, his first cousin Ed Conroy (also a Citadel graduate) was later named the school's basketball coach.

He currently lives on Fripp Island, South Carolina.

His South Carolina roots clearly show in all his work.

• The Boo, 1970
• The Water Is Wide, 1972
• The Great Santini, 1976
• The Lords of Discipline, 1980
• The Prince of Tides, 1986
• Beach Music, 1995
• My Losing Season, 2002
• The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life

• 1986 audio interview of Pat Conroy by Don Swaim
• Official Web site for Pat Conroy
• Excerpts from 1991 interview

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