Pat Conroy

Southern writer whose career was launched in 1972 with The Water Is Wide, a nonfiction book about teaching black children in the south. The son of a Marine Corps pilot and a graduate of The Citadel, much of Conroy's fiction is based on autobiographical experiences of childhood abuse and military school. Several of his novels, including The Great Santini (1977) and The Prince of Tides (1986), were made into major Hollywood movies. Conroy cowrote the screenplay for The Prince of Tides (1992), which starred Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte.