Smith Kirkpatrick, a former UF professor, spent much of his childhood in awe of seashells he found while playing in the Arkansas mountains.
His daughter, Katie Kirkpatrick, said it was his early fascination with the natural world that spawned a desire to make his career revolve around writing and helping others, including UF students, hone their talents for the same craft.
Kirkpatrick, 85, died in his Gainesville home Friday with his two daughters, Anna Marie and Katie, grandchildren, friends and former students at his side. He battled lung cancer for several years.
Kirkpatrick came to UF in the 1950s as a fiction-writing student of Andrew Lytle, head of UF's Creative Writing Program. When Lytle left the program to become editor of The Sewanee Review, Kirkpatrick kept the program alive.
One of Kirkpatrick's significant UF contributions was founding the UF Writer's Conference, where famous writers, editors and agents would come and help young writers get their big break. Katie said the day before he died, her father received a wooden plaque from UF thanking him for founding the conference.
He published his only novel based upon his experiences in the Navy, called "The Sun's Gold."
She said his liberal teaching style often clashed with those of administrators and other professors, but he found favor with his students, who called him "Kirk."
One of his most renowned students, Harry Crews, dedicated his first novel, "The Gospel Singer,"to Kirkpatrick.
"When people would take his class, it was unlike any other writing class they had taken," Katie said.
She said the family plans to scatter his ashes across the same Arkansas Mountains where he first fostered his desire to put his thoughts into words.
