(CN) - Over the course of his 70 years on the planet, Pat Conroy was many things to many people.
To most, he was the author of a string of popular novels -- "The Prince of Tides," "Lords of Discipline," "The Great Santini," and "The Water is Wide," among them -- that inevitably fell into the warm embrace of Hollywood.
Two of them, "The Prince of Tides" and "The Great Santini," were even nominated for Academy Awards.
His gift, it was said, was an ability to make his family's dysfunction, and the personal pain and sadness they inspired, universal.
To an extraordinary number of people, however, and especially the writers who crossed Conroy's path prior to his death from pancreatic cancer in early March 2016, he was a tireless teacher, mentor and mischievous, high-spirited friend.
"I don't know where he found the energy, but he just devoted himself to other writers," the Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg told Courthouse News recently.
"To those of us who were the recipients of that attention, he was more than a friend," Bragg continued. "He was an advocate and a champion and a fan.
"And, you know, if one of the best American writers who has ever lived is a fan of your work, then you can walk on air for awhile," he said.
Writers and fans got to repay Conroy for his generosity and work, during an extended celebration of his 70th birthday in the fall of 2015. Later this week, many of them will once again gather in Beaufort, South Carolina, to remember the man and the writer at the annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival.
Presented by the Pat Conroy Literary Center in partnership with the University of South Carolina, Beaufort’s Center for the Arts, the festival is a four-day salute to Conroy and his legacy as well as a fête to southern literature and culture.
It is the brainchild of Kentucky-born Jonathan Haupt, who served as director of the University of South Carolina Press before becoming the Pat Conroy Literary Center's executive director.
At the USC Press, Haupt established the Story River Books fiction imprint, edited by Conroy, and together they published an astounding 22 books over a five-year period -- a feat that inspired Garden & Gun magazine to name the now-defunct imprint one of the top ten things to love about the South.
But since then, he and Cassandra King, as the author's widow is known professionally, have devoted considerable time and energy, much to their mutual surprise, to pulling off one festival after another.
"This was not supposed to be an annual event," King said, a bit of surprise coloring the pride and gratitude in her voice.
"Jonathan and the director of the performing arts center here planned Pat's 70th birthday celebration as a one-off event, but after it was so successful, he began thinking, 'maybe we can do this every year.'"
"It was an idea Pat supported," Haupt said. "And then, just a few months later, he was gone."
At the time of the 70th birthday celebration, which was equal parts birthday bash, book festival, writers conference, and community outreach program, no one knew Pat Conroy was ill.
Then, on February 15, 2016, the author took to Facebook to announce he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.