Theme Cruise Finder - Pat Conroy

Please register or log in.

Latest 20 ads

Item details

Category

Authors

Owner

TCF

Days left until departure

Title

Pat Conroy

Description

Celebrity Guest Speaker: Award Winning Novelist

Pat Conroy (Fripp Island, SC),
Pat Conroy uses stories to explore the great themes of life. His honesty and his remarkable command of the language of the heart have won him devoted readers around the world. Pat was born in Atlanta to a Southern beauty from Alabama, whom he often credits for his love of language, and a career military officer from Chicago, whose job required his family to move many times to different Southern bases. The first of seven children, he changed schools 11 times in 12 years, and finally attended The Citadel in Charleston where he was captain and most valuable player of the Varsity basketball team, and from which he graduated in 1967 with a degree in English. After graduation, he worked two years as a teacher in Beaufort High School in South Carolina, and one year as an elementary school teacher in Daufuskie, South Carolina.

The Boo, Conroy’s first book, was published in 1970. His next four novels, The Water is Wide (filmed as Conrack), The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, and The Prince of Tides were all made into motion pictures, the latter earning numerous awards and nominations, including an Academy Award nomination for Pat’s screenplay. His other works include Beach Music and My Losing Season, both of which have been optioned for movies, and, most recently, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes From My Life. His next novel, South of Broad, will be published in August 2009.

Pat’s many awards include The National Endowment for the Arts Award for Achievement in Education, The Georgia Governor’s Award for Arts, The American Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award, South Carolina’s Order of the Palmetto and, in 2005, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature.

Special Interest Lecturer: The Business of Film

Rick Senat (London, England)
Rick entered the motion picture industry in 1970 working independently in the UK and the US on independent films. A qualified solicitor he joined Warner Bros. in 1976, his most recent position being Senior Vice-President, Business Affairs Europe, with responsibility for activities in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. In that position he has worked closely with many prominent filmmakers.

Amongst the projects with which he has been involved are the Harry Potter films, Greystoke, Batman, Superman and many more. He retired from the company after 25 years in 2002. Since then he has been involved in reviving the legendary British Film Company Hammer Film Productions. He has served as Vice-Chair of the European Film College, Denmark for several years and also as a governor and Vice Chair of the British Film Institute. He is a board member of Bank Leumi (UK) plc. and Chairman of Film Education, a UK Charity that brings film to teachers and students and takes over 400,000 young people to the cinema every year. He has recently been appointed a visiting professor at Lincoln University.

After co-producing Claude Lelouch's film of And Now Ladies and Gentlemen, with Jeremy Irons and a West End show, with Gyles Brandryth, Rick formed a new company, Poster Pictures, which has a number of projects in development and has been a consultant to various productions including Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban, Troy, Alfie, Sahara, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Nanny McPhee, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Doom, Derailed, Kinky Boots and other well known films.

Destination Lecturer: Award-Winning Broadcast Journalist

Ken Rees (Cardiff, Wales)
With over 25 years experience as a world-travelling foreign correspondent with Britain’s ITN, Ken Rees has worked extensively in Europe and Middle East. He has written about ancient and modern Greece as well as the history and contemporary problems of countries such as Egypt and Lebanon. He reported from Yugoslavia before the fall of the Soviet Union and later returned to witness the devastating civil war which raged across the newly independent Balkan states.

Ken has held almost every job in a television newsroom from scriptwriter, news editor, and reporter to Director of News and Current Affairs. During a 15-year career with Britain’s flagship network program, ITN’s News at Ten, he also served as Northern Bureau Chief in the UK, Europe reporter and, for six years, as Washington Correspondent.

Ken’s other credits include the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, the Falklands War, the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, Beirut, Northern Ireland, and the Gulf War. In 1986 the Royal Television Society named him Television Reporter of the Year, their highest honor. Ken now works as a broadcast consultant, trains journalists for TV companies and writes on travel and world affairs.

Special Interest Lecturer: World Affairs

Dr. Louis Rene Beres (West Lafayette, IN)
Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University, columnist and author, Dr. Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971). His ten published books deal with such issues as US foreign policy, terrorism, counter-terrorism, nuclear strategy and nuclear war. Dr. Beres is also the author of more than fifty major law journal articles, and of over one hundred scholarly articles dealing with various philosophical, psychological, historical and military dimensions of world politics. His lectures provide a stimulating and informed guide to critical issues of our time.

Special Interest Lecturer

Dr. Harm de Blij (Boca Grande, FL)
Author, professor and TV personality, Dr. de Blij was the popular Geography Editor for seven years on ABC's Good Morning America. In his role as television's geographer, he has appeared from locations throughout the US and around the world, using his trademark maps to explain the geographic background to major events.