"B" is for Baldwin, William Plews, III (b. 1944). Novelist. Baldwin was born in McClellanville and reared in the lowcountry of Georgia and South Carolina. After graduating from Clemson, he settled in McClellanville where he has made a living by crabbing, oystering, shrimping, serving as a magistrate, writing screenplays for Hollywood, designing and building houses, and by writing fiction. Baldwin’s first novel, The Hard to Catch Mercy (1993),was universally well received, winning the Lillian Smith Award for Fiction and becoming a Book-of-the-Month Club selection.