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A CONVERSATION WITH CASSANDRA KING ABOUT THE HARPER LEE AWARD by Mary Ellen Thompson
A CONVERSATION WITH CASSANDRA KING ABOUT THE HARPER LEE AWARD by Mary Ellen Thompson
Beaufort, SC’s beloved author, Cassandra King, was the recipient of this year’s prestigious Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer on February 28, 2025. In doing so, she kept company with Patti Callahan Henry, Rick Bragg, Carolyn Haines, Fannie Flagg, and a host of other renowned authors.
Established in 1998, and presented by the Monroeville Literary Festival, the press release states, “The annual award recognizes the lifetime achievement of a writer either born in Alabama or strongly connected to the state. It is funded by Harper Lee LLC and is one of the top southern literature awards.”
Cassandra has written five novels and two non-fiction books, the most recent of which is Tell Me a Story, about her life with Pat Conroy. She has won numerous awards for her books, and has also authored several short stories and articles.
The Harper Lee Award is a big deal for a Southern writer. When I asked Cassandra if she was excited and/or nervous about going to get her award, she replied, with her not unusual tongue-in-cheek response. “Well, I’m of course pleased to be honored in my native state - and Harper Lee was a big influence in my life - but just between us,” (sorry about this Cassandra, not just between us any longer) “I’m too old to enjoy going to book festivals. I just want to be home. But I’ll have a bonus on this trip, in that I’ll get to see my grandkids in Birmingham, and my oldest son and his wife from Houston are flying in for the ceremony. My sister and her son are coming too, I haven’t seen her for a while. I love Monroeville and will enjoy catching up with some of my Bama friends from the old days. Rick Bragg is doing the toast at dinner.”
Unfortunately Rick Bragg wasn’t able to be there but the Chairman of the event read Rick’s remarks. When Mr. Bragg was inducted into the Alabama Humanities Alliance as a Fellow, this past December, Cassandra, an inaugural Humanities Fellow herself, was asked to introduce him.
Cassandra’s obvious delight about the award is evidenced in her remarks, “One of my most treasured possessions, literally under lock and key in my desk, is my signed copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. 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, Cassandra said she 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. 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.”
When I asked Cassandra how she found out she had won the award, she told me that last fall she had received a message from Jonathan Haupt at The Pat Conroy Literary Center, where Cassandra is Honorary Chair, telling her that a group of people in Alabama wanted to contact her. Then she received a telephone call letting her know she had won the award. ”I was very pleased but I couldn’t tell anyone. Pat’s name for me was Helen Keller.” In the introduction to A Lowcountry Heart, Reflections on a Writing Life, Cassandra wrote, “I’m notoriously closemouthed and private; so much so that he would later nickname me Helen Keller. Not only were Helen Keller and I both native Alabamians, he said, but like my namesake, I saw nothing, heard nothing, said nothing.” So she told no one.
Cassandra was not a stranger to the Monroeville Literary Festival, she had been there with most of her books when they debuted. She remembers when the Festival was held at the college and the Harper Lee Award was presented at the country club, and the closing ceremony crowned the festival with the play of To Kill a Mockingbird, which started being held outside the courthouse but moved inside the courthouse for Tom’s trial. Cassandra recalled that the audience went into the courthouse, drew a number and, based on that, was picked to be on the jury. The Black community sat in the balcony; Scout and Jem were also in the balcony. Cassandra said that when the trial was over and Atticus was walking out of the courthouse, Reverend Sykes told Scout, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.” was such a powerful moment for her. Now, the play is in April instead of during the festival, and the entire trial is held in the courthouse.
Cassandra told me that she had always wanted to be a writer, that even as a child she wrote stories, and Harper Lee had a large influence on her writing. For a few minutes we batted around the writers that we had liked in the 1960’s and agreed upon Carolyn Keene, J. D. Salinger, James Mitchner, Louisa May Alcott, and Ernest Hemingway. Cassandra thought that Harper Lee may have been the first Southern author she ever read; somewhere in the list were Margaret Mitchell and Thomas Wolfe, but not until later.
When receiving her award, Cassandra particularly enjoyed being introduced by a direct descendant, Anna Lee Gresham, who is Harper Lee’s great-niece, and Cassandra also got to meet Anna’s mother. I asked her if in addition to her own family, any of her “same sweet girls” were there and Cassandra said no. “Well,” I said, “they are off the list now!”
Cassandra laughed and said “I know! But for various reasons they couldn’t make it.” I’m sure they were all there in spirit as were all of Cassandra’s friends and fans. The award will be on display at The Pat Conroy Literary Center and it won’t be difficult to miss because not only was it a big deal to win it, but also it is an impressively large bronze replica of the Monroeville courthouse.
