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 itinerant father who disappeared several weeks before the birthing event. A dozen years later, Conner met his father for the first time in a brief encounter of less than ten minutes. He would see this parent alive only once more in 1960, when the rising junior medical student was called to the hospital bed of his comatose and dying father.
From an early age, Conner recognized the value of higher education, and after graduating from high school in 1952, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy at age 17 in order to qualify for future GI Bill benefits. Along with earning those, he advanced rapidly in the military. In 1955, only days after receiving his Honorable Discharge, he enrolled at Emory at Oxford College where he became an exemplary student.
Within three years, he was accepted in to Emory University School of Medicine on a full scholarship, graduating with his medical degree in 1962. Dr. Conner began 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 85, Dr. Conner is nearing completion of Boy Jumps Over the Moon, Book Two of a planned trilogy. BJOM is an in-depth account of his storybook journey while serving in the Navy. At present, Book Three bears the working title Out of Penumbra, a story drawn from both the numerous years spent in classrooms and hospitals as well as the many rich lessons he learned by living life fully.