1 of 2
At home in Beaufort
From left to right, Cele Seldon, Pat Conroy, Cassandra King Conroy and Lynn Seldon during a visit to the author’s home overlooking Battery Creek.
Photo by Jennifer Hitchcock
2 of 2
Preserving the memories
Jonathan Haupt, director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center, welcomes visitors to take a seat behind the desk Pat Conroy used to write Beach Music and many other titles.
Photo by Seldon Ink
“To describe our growing up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation, scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, ‘There. That taste. That’s the taste of my childhood.’ I would say, ‘Breathe deeply,’ and you would breathe and remember that smell for the rest of your life.” —from The Prince of Tides
Pat Conroy could do that to you.
In 89 well-crafted words, South Carolina’s most-celebrated modern author could create a world so vivid that it engaged all the senses. He could make you taste that oyster, smell the salt air and feel the squish of pluff mud between your toes. And he made it look easy.
In a life lived out across seven decades and 12 iconic books, Donald Patrick “Pat” Conroy made South Carolina his home and his muse. Many of his works read like love letters to the Palmetto State. Some delved into autobiographical themes—a rocky father-and-son relationship (The Great Santini), his experiences as a cadet at The Citadel (The Lords of Discipline), his years teaching on Daufuskie Island (The Water Is Wide). All of them delighted countless readers, leaving an endearing legacy that those of us lucky enough to call him a mentor and a friend will long cherish.
Since Conroy passed away in 2016, his family and friends have begun curating and sharing his legacy at the Pat Conroy Literary Center in downtown Beaufort, and with a new book of remembrances from fellow authors, Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy.
Founded soon after the author’s untimely death, the nonprofit Conroy Center is “a living legacy to Pat, continuing his work as a teacher, mentor, friend, and advocate for readers and writers,” says director Jonathan Haupt.
Haupt and Conroy first got to know one another when Haupt was working at University of South Carolina Press and, later, its fiction imprint, Story River Books—with Pat serving as a very active editor-at-large.
“During the intensely productive last five years of his life, Pat and I worked together as mentor and student, publishing 22 remarkable titles,” Haupt says. “That experience changed my life and it’s that friendship that I strive to honor as director of the Conroy Center.”
Located at 905 Port Republic Street in downtown Beaufort, the center is open to the public four days a week (Thursday through Sunday), and filled with mementos of Conroy’s life and career. Visitors to the center can sit at the desk Conroy used on nearby Fripp Island to write much of Beach Music and many other books. The desk is situated in front of a large mural by local artist Aki Kato. The mural appropriately depicts the kind of bucolic Lowcountry scene that inspired Conroy’s writing.
Many other exhibits await, including a wall of books once housed in the voracious reader’s massive personal library; one of the real “Great Santini’s” flight jackets; letters and manuscripts from a long literary career; even a quilt made by Conroy’s sister Kathy that highlights many memories from his life. Pictures show Conroy as a cadet at The Citadel and depict his teaching days on Daufuskie Island.
The center also hosts a wide-ranging schedule of events, including book club discussions, writing workshops, and a visiting writers series that, to date, has featured top authors including Mary Alice Monroe, Tim Conroy (Pat’s brother and a renowned poet), Brenda McClain, C.J. Lyons, Wiley Cash, Ellen Malphrus, Jason Mott, Patti Callahan Henry, Dorothea Benton Frank, John Warley, Marjory Wentworth, J. Drew Lanham and many others.
Each fall, over a long weekend close to Pat Conroy’s Oct. 26 birthday, the center hosts the Pat Conroy Literary Festival, one of the region’s top literary events. And each spring, on a weekend near the anniversary of Conroy’s March 4, 2016, passing, March Forth is an ever-expanding literary celebration for area students. Most March Forth events take place at the nearby Penn Center on St. Helena Island, which held a special place in Conroy’s heart.
There is a bookstore, of course. Along with various editions of Conroy’s books (including several signed first editions), there are titles from the Story River Books imprint; books about Conroy; books by his widow, Cassandra King Conroy; books by his daughter Melissa and brother Tim; and art prints of Conroy’s book covers, most by his longtime cover artist, Wendell Minor.
Many visitors are now leaving with a copy of Our Prince of Tides: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, published in late 2018. Edited by Haupt and author Nicole Seitz (both contributed essays, along with 65 others), the book is a tribute to Conroy’s legendary graciousness toward other writers, says his widow, Cassandra King Conroy.
“Pat Conroy was the most generous man imaginable to other writers, especially in providing blurbs and support for beginning writers,” she says. “A lot of people don’t realize how unusual that is for an author of Pat’s stature.”
___
Get There
The Pat Conroy Literary Center is located at 905 Port Republic Street in Beaufort.
Hours: Thursday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., and at other times by appointment.
Admission: Free
Details: Call (843) 379-7025, visit patconroyliterarycenter.org or facebook.com/patconroyliterarycenter.
___
The Ring of Friendship
By Lynn Seldon
This excerpt of Lynn Seldon’s essay from Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy is used courtesy of University of Georgia Press. Carolina’s Ring, Lynn Seldon’s sequel to his first novel, is scheduled for release later this year.
My name is Lynn Seldon, and I wear the ring. It’s not one of those diminutive rings from The Citadel. It’s a substantial chunk of gold from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI).
I always loved comparing rings—and military school stories and nightmares—with Pat. We shared a love/hate relationship with our chosen colleges—especially our “initiation” rites as Citadel knobs and VMI rats—but wore our rings with pride as part of a unique brotherhood.
I stand proudly in an overflowing platoon of people who were influenced by Pat’s words on paper and in person. We first met in the fall of 2009, the year South of Broad was released. Fittingly enough, it was in Charleston, just north of Broad.
I’d planned to “interview” Pat with pithy questions about what he’d order for his last meal (incredibly, he paired each dish with a specific wine), but the lunch turned into more of a conversation between seemingly longtime friends who had once served in the trenches of a military school. Pat ordered Frank Lee’s famed shrimp and grits and, as he would do with me many times over many meals, he happily shared his food.
Sometime during lunch, Pat wondered out loud why no one had written “The VMI Novel,” as he had done for The Citadel with The Lords of Discipline. I’ll never forget him looking me squarely in the eyes and saying, “I think you can do it, Lynn.”
After lunch (I still have my scrawled and sauce-stained notes), we retraced our steps to the bar of the Mills House. Pat asked if I wanted to continue our chat over coffee. Duh.
We talked about life, writing, travel, and, specifically, his love of Charleston, Beaufort, and the Lowcountry. He even brought up the VMI novel again before we finally parted and I made my way up Meeting Street in a daze.
The next time I saw Pat, it was in the pretty Shenandoah Valley town of Lexington, Virginia, where he was scheduled to speak at VMI. Pat came north with his friend and Citadel classmate, the novelist John Warley. (I loved A Southern Girl and now call John a friend as well.) We met for dinner at the classic Southern Inn on South Main Street, along with their friend, Wyatt Durrette (VMI Class of 1961). Pat and I both ordered shad roe, which was in season.
The next morning, we headed up the hill to VMI and Pat, as always, gave a great speech that was totally unrehearsed. Somehow, I’d ended up sitting next to VMI’s superintendent, Gen. Binford Peay, VMI Class of 1962.
Pat began by saying he was wearing the “real” military school ring, holding his hand aloft, but he’d actually forgotten his Citadel ring and had borrowed John’s just before his speech. After the laughter died down, Pat then pointed up to me and said, “There’s a VMI graduate named Lynn Seldon that I’m trying to get to write a novel about VMI. I am as excited about that publication as I can be.”
I can’t remember much more of what he said that morning. I was too focused on him making my work on the novel so public. But, between paying freelance assignments, lots of travel, and some monk-like stays back at VMI’s Moody Hall, where alumni can stay for free, the book Pat referenced eventually saw the light of day about five years later.
One of those paying assignments was a feature about Pat and Sandra for Writer’s Digest. For the interview, Pat graciously invited my wife, Cele, and I down to their Fripp Island home. Of course, they gave us a great interview that would eventually become a cover story. But, the thing I remember most will always be heading back to their bedroom and adjacent library and writing room.
To say that Pat collected books is a vast understatement. As outlined in My Reading Life, his lifelong love affair with books had led to a vast collection. The books would eventually be moved to their Beaufort home on bucolic Battery Creek, where I would spend many more memorable moments with Pat and Sandra.
During one of our subsequent phone calls, Pat told me about his somewhat regular Thursday lunches with friends at Griffin Market in downtown Beaufort. He said, “You should come.”
I’ll never forget those lingering lunches with Pat and “the boys.” He was typically joined by Citadel classmates John Warley and Scott Graber, best friend (and wonderful writer in his own right) Bernie Schein, artist Jonathan Hannah (now Bernie’s son-in-law), Aaron Schein (Bernie’s brother), and occasional others. The concept of the University of South Carolina Press’s Story River Books was even hatched when then-USC Press director extraordinaire Jonathan Haupt (and, now, director of the Pat Conroy Literary Center) came for lunch.
During these lunches, tours of town with Pat (from the Great Santini’s grave to the house where they filmed The Prince of Tides), and time back at Pat and Sandra’s house, Pat never failed to ask about progress on my novel. Despite my plodding, he was always encouraging.
In 2013, four years after we’d first met in Charleston. I placed a printout of what I thought was the completed manuscript on Pat’s writing desk, ominously atop what appeared to be a first edition of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. The then-title of my short novel was Of Rats & Rings, at which Pat laughed his unique laugh, saying, “Rat Seldon, never name a novel after a rodent!” I quickly countered with Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, but Pat would have none of it—and, he was right, of course.
Just a few days later, I received a call from Pat, which caller ID relayed was “Donald Conroy” and I briefly thought the Great Santini himself was somehow on the other end of the line. Paraphrasing what James Dickey had once told him, Pat started the phone call with, “I read your book, Bubba. Now the real work begins.” He then proceeded to succinctly outline the problems with my plot and how I might fix them. He also gave me the right title: Virginia’s Ring.
It took another year and the real work—and bloodletting—that Pat suggested, but Virginia’s Ring was released in 2014. The compelling cover art was completed by Pat’s longtime cover artist, Wendell Minor. Pat graciously referred me to him, and Wendell (which, ironically, is also my given name) was kind enough to give me the “Pat Conroy rabbinical discount” for his wonderful work and time. Pat also graciously provided a short cover blurb (“A triumph and a tour de force”) and a longer plug inside, which has surely led to more sales of Virginia’s Ring than my mere words.
Virginia’s Ring is simply a physical reminder of Pat’s influence on my writing and life. It’s the memories I’ll cherish more. The meals. The calls. The time with Pat and Sandra in Beaufort and beyond. I stand at attention in that overflowing platoon and salute Pat and everything he did for so many. After all, we wear the ring.