Meet Mary Alice Monroe, whose best-selling novels nearly all share a dominant, lowcountry theme. She has written ten best-selling novels, but it was not until she moved to the Isle of Palms (Charleston), where her life and writings melded together into a perfect harmony. Here, she became involved in care for wildlife, especially to the plight of endangered sea turtles. It was then where she began to use her concern for the natural world as a backdrop and metaphor for the stories she was writing. She was able to write about her passion for the environment in a way that didn’t alienate her fans; writing about things such as the declining shrimp industry, or a man stranded out at sea. Her words are infused with a passion to teach, as well as to entertain; a calling of deep wisdom, and compassion.
Monroe says that the challenge for authors in the lowcountry, along with authors in the South, is to not fall into the trap of nostalgia, so they make it trivial.
