New York Times best-selling writer Pat Conroy (1945–2016) inspired a worldwide legion of devoted fans numbering in the millions, but none are more loyal to him and more committed to sustaining his literary legacy than the many writers he nurtured over the course of his fifty-year writing life. In sharing their stories of Conroy, his fellow writers honor his memory and advance our shared understanding of his lasting impact on twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary life in and well beyond the American South.

Conroy’s was a messy fellowship of people from all walks of life. His relationships were complicated, and people and places he thought he’d left behind often circled back to him at crucial moments. The pantheon of contributors includes Pulitzer Prize winners Rick Bragg and Kathleen Parker; Grammy winners Barbra Streisand and Janis Ian; Lillian Smith Award winners Anthony Grooms and Mary Hood; National Book Award winner Nikky Finney; James Beard Foundation Award winners Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart; a corps of New York Times best-selling authors, including Ron Rash, Sandra Brown, and Mary Alice Monroe; Conroy biographers Katherine Clark and Catherine Seltzer; longtime Conroy friends Bernie Schein, Cliff Graubart, John Warley, and Walter Edgar; Pat’s students Sallie Ann Robinson and Valerie Sayers; members of the Conroy family; and many more.

Each author in this collection shares a slightly different view of Conroy. Through their voices, a vibrant, multifaceted portrait of him comes to life and sheds new light on the writer and the man. Loosely following Conroy’s own chronology, the essays in Our Prince of Scribes wind through his river of a story, stopping at important ports of call. Cities he called home and longed to visit, along with each book he birthed, become characters that are as equally important as the people he touched and loved along the way.

Foreword by: Barbra Streisand
Contributions by: Stephanie Austin Edwards, David Lauderdale, Bernie Schein, Scott Graber, John Warley, Valerie Sayers, Sallie Ann Robinson, Dottie Ashley, Josephine Humphreys, Wendell Minor, Michael O'Keefe, Jonathan Galassi, Terry Kay, Melissa Conroy, Maggie Schein, Steve Oney, Nikky Finney, Cliff Graubart, Anne Rivers Siddons, Nathalie Dupree, Cynthia Graubart, William Walsh, Jonathan Carroll, Ryder Carroll, Mark Childress, Janis Ian, Kathy L. Murphy, Alex Sanders, Lawrence S. Rowland, Ashley Warlick, Tim Conroy, Rick Bragg, Connie May Fowler, William A. Balk, Jr., Judy Goldman, Andy Marlette, Teresa Miller, Kathleen Parker, Walter Edgar, Mary Alice Monroe, John Connor Cleveland, Jonathan Sanchez, George Singleton, Sandra Brown, Nicole Seitz, Sean Scapellato, Lynn Seldon, Michael Morris, Katherine Clark, Sonny Brewer, Scott Graber, Ron Rash, Teresa K. Weaver, Catherine Seltzer, Bren McClain, Marjory Wentworth, Patti Callahan Henry, Debbi Covington, John Lane, Anthony Grooms, Ellen Malphrus, Mark Powell, Mary Hood
Afterword by: Cassandra King Conroy