MAGallery Author

In 1934, William Charles Conner was born into Georgia's hill country poverty, the sixth and final child conceived by his ex-schoolteacher mother and an itinerant father who disappeared several weeks before the birthing event.

Recognizing from an early age the value of higher education, Conner enlisted in the U. S. Navy after graduating from high school in 1952 in order to qualify for future GI Bill benefits. In 1955, only days after receiving his Honorable Discharge, he enrolled at Oxford College of Emory University where he graduated with highest honors.

Within three years, he was accepted into Emory University School of Medicine on a full scholarship, graduating with his medical degree in 1962. Dr. Conner completed his residency at Emory in the Department of Psychiatry where he would later serve on the faculty. For thirty years, the author worked as a psychotherapist in private practice until, in his words, he decided to "stop writing prescriptions and start writing my life story."

At age 90, having completed a trilogy memoir as originally conceived, Dr. Conner spends his time on a hilltop near the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art, continuing to explore existence with his wife Lisa.