Lauderdale: Cassandra King's tell-all: 'Have a space that you can claim'

Pat Conroy has a teasing nickname for his wife, author Cassandra King.

He calls her "Helen Keller" because she supposedly hears nothing, sees nothing and tells nothing -- as opposed to the other writer rattling around in their Beaufort home on the banks of Battery Creek.

And that it is the beauty of Cassandra's essay in a new book from Hub City Press in Spartanburg: "Carolina Writers at Home."

As it turns out, Cassandra does tell inside stories of their successful 17-year marriage.

For example, no one knew about their wedding on a Sunday afternoon in 1998. And exactly what day in May it took place in a Charleston back yard, none of the four people present can remember. That includes Pat's friend Alex Sanders who married them and his wife, Zoe Sanders, who was there with a small cake.

This wasn't part of the nuptials, Cassandra allows in her tell-all essay, but Pat made an important promise. She would have her own writing room.

"On The Question of A Writing Room" is the title of Cassandra's essay, one of 25 that Carolina writers shared for editor Meg Reid.

Author Roger Pinckney of Daufuskie Island tells funny stories about his life in the far reaches of Minnesota and how he came home to the Lowcountry and built a reproduction of an 1890s Cracker House on Daufuskie. "It even had a refrigerator on the porch," he writes.

Cassandra King's writing life has by and large taken place here in Beaufort County.

She had one novel ready for publication when she met Conroy. A second one had been written, but she wasn't sure she wanted it to see the light of day. "The Sunday Wife" was fiction, but reflects her pained past life as a Methodist pastor's wife.

All five of her other books, all successes, have been produced in the writing rooms that Conroy indeed delivered.

She writes while sitting on a daybed, pecking at an Apple laptop with light pouring in from windows on two walls. She can watch the tide breathe in and out in a slow drama directed by herons and egrets. She listens to New-Agey, smooth music. Original artwork looks down on the scene.

Her writing room, like Conroy's on the other side of the house, could also be called reading rooms because they are so full of books.

At present, Cassandra is working on two projects. One is a cookbook with her friend Janis Owens: "A Fine Frolic: The Cracker Art of Good Living." The main project is a novel she's calling "the farm book." It will capture her family's experiences on the land in lower Alabama, where her father and grandfather grew peanuts.

When I visited the writing room this week, Cassandra was wearing a "Real Women Watch Football" shirt in the colors of her home-state Crimson Tide. She showed me an old "Book of Common Prayer" Pat gave her. On the door is a hand-written note: "If the door's closed, I'm either creating great works of Literature or doing nothing. (I'll reappear eventually)."

According to the tell-all essay, she almost disappeared for good in her first writing room. It was in their home on Fripp Island. The story involves a tick bite, fever and a near-death experience.

But at the heart of Cassandra's essay is the tale of new life.

"The truth was, I'd never been brave enough to demand a writing room of my own," she writes.

All those years, she put her husband, three children and teaching career ahead of her personal urge to write.

"I did not give myself permission to be an artist," she said.

Even when she accepted a writing room on Fripp Island -- in space that surely should have been reserved for their large, blended family -- Cassandra worried about being seen as the wicked stepmother.

"It was the first act of asserting myself as a writer," Cassandra said.

It's something she sees as having great value. It's something she tells aspiring writers: Have a space that you can claim.

IF YOU GO

Book signing: Beaufort County author Cassandra King will celebrate the launch of the essay and photograph collection, "Carolina Writers at Home," with a signing event at McIntosh's Book Shoppe, 917 Bay St., Beaufort, from 2 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12.

Follow columnist and senior editor David Lauderdale at twitter.com/ThatsLauderdale and facebook.com/david.lauderdale.16.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 7:15 PM with the headline "Lauderdale: Cassandra King's tell-all: 'Have a space that you can claim'."