From staff reports
Beaufort’s Cassandra King has been chosen as the 2025 recipient of the Harper Lee Award by the committee selected by leadership of the upcoming Monroeville Literary Festival, to be held Thursday, Feb. 27 through Saturday, March 1, in Monroeville, Ala.
The Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer is awarded each year at the Monroeville Literary Festival, a project of the Monroe County Museum in Monroeville. The annual award recognizes the lifetime achievement of a writer who was born in Alabama or whose literary career developed in the state.
The Alabama Writers Awards — the Harper Lee Award, named after the author of the classic novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” and the Truman Capote Prize – are the highlight of the Festival.
King is the award-winning author of two books of non-fiction and five novels — “Making Waves,” “The Sunday Wife,” “The Same Sweet Girls,” “Queen of Broken Hearts” and “Moonrise” — as well as numerous short stories and articles. “The Sunday Wife” was a Book Sense Pick and a People Magazine Page Turner of the Week; on release, “The Same Sweet Girls” was the No. 1 Book Sense selection nationwide. “Queen of Broken Hearts,” was a Book of the Month Club and Literary Guild selection. Her latest book,”Tell Me a Story,” was named SIBA’s non-fiction Book of the Year.
A native of Alabama, Cassandra resides in Beaufort, where she is honorary chair of the Pat Conroy Literary Center.
“One of my most treasured possessions, literally under lock and key in my desk, is my signed copy of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’” King told the Festival. “As someone who came of age in rural Alabama during the time of the book’s release, I don’t just love and appreciate ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ I revere it. When Harper Lee told the story of Scout Finch, she was telling my story as well, and the stories of so many of us who grew up during that historic time.”
In expressing her gratitude for the award, King wished she had been able to speak to the late author herself to say, “Harper Lee, few writers have touched and influenced as many lives as you have. But please allow this Alabama girl to finally say thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Your writing not only touched and influenced me, you changed my vision of the world.”
King grew up on a peanut farm in the rural community of Pinckard, Ala. As a child, she wrote stories to read to her friends at recess. King attended Alabama College (now University of Montevallo) and graduated with a BA in English in 1967. In the late 1980s, King returned to the University of Montevallo, where she earned an MFA in 1988.
After the end of her first marriage, King taught English and writing classes for several years at Jefferson State and Gadsden State Community Colleges and at the University of Montevallo. In 1998, King married Beaufort writer Pat Conroy, whom she had met in 1995 at the Southern Voices literary conference in Hoover.
After their marriage, King stopped teaching and began writing full-time. Her most recent book, “Tell Me a Story,” is a memoir of her life with Conroy.
For more on the Monroeville Literary Festival, visit www.monroevilleliteraryfestival.com. To register or buy tickets for this year’s events, go to https://bit.ly/42YZhpQ.
