Pat Conroy (born October 26, 1945 in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.) is a New York Times bestselling author who has written such acclaimed works as The Lords of Discipline, Beach Music, The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides, The Water is Wide, The Boo, My Losing Season, and The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life. His first book, The Boo, was written and published while Conroy was still a student at the Citadel. Conroy's stories have been heavily influenced by his upbringing and by tragedies in his family over the years. His father, Marine Colonel Donald Conroy, was a very violent and abusive man, and the pain of a youth growing up in this environment is evident in Conroy's novels, The Great Santini in particular. Conroy is a graduate of The Citadel, and his experiences there provided the setting, if not the plot, for The Lords of Discipline.

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, staring Jon Voight in 1974. Hallmark produced a television version of the book in 2006.

He was once recorded saying, "“My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, "All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: 'On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to sister.”

He currently lives on Fripp Island, South Carolina.

                       

Courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Conroy