Craft: Carol Conroy
Carol Conroy (1948-2025) was a poet and the younger sister of novelist Pat Conroy. She was the basis of the character Savannah in the book and movie The Prince of Tides. The real Carol Conroy, though, whom Pat Conroy called “the Conroy family poet and fabulist, the great explainer to it all,” earned her MFA at NYU in 1987, where her mentors were Galway Kinnell and Sharon Olds.
Her book, The Beauty Wars (1991), covers similar terrain and material as The Prince of Tides—the Deep South, parental abuse, the bonds among brothers and sisters, and the demons of the human family.
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