Author Spotlight: Carol Higgins Clark

Get to know PCL's Annual Summer Celebrity before her visit to Parkland High School's auditorium on Wed., June 9th at 7pm!

Carol Higgins Clark is the author of thirteen Regan Reilly mysteries, all of which have hit the New York Times bestseller list. A native New Yorker, Carol has four siblings and an incredibly famous mother, America's #1 bestselling suspense writer, Mary Higgins Clark. They have co-authored five bestselling holiday suspense novels, including Dashing Through the Snow.

Carol obtained her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College. She then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. After several acting gigs in theater, film and television, Carol tried her hand at writing a novel. The result was Decked, the first Regan Reilly novel and a nominee for both an Anthony and Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Here are some fun facts about Carol:
*Her first job was at a dry cleaners, which inspired her to cast a character in Iced as an employee at a dry cleaners.
*One critic has noted "Mary Higgins Clark goes for the jugular; Carol Higgins Clark goes for the funny bone."
*Together, Carol Higgins Clark and Mary Higgins Clark received the University of Scranton's Distinguished Author Award in September 2000.
*Carol has recorded several of her mother's works, as well as her own novels. She received AudioFile magazine's Earphones Award of Excellence for her reading of Jinxed in 2002.
*Her training as a novelist began early on, as she typed up some of her mother's novels on a manual typewriter.
*She starred in Who Killed Amy Lang?, a mini-mystery aired on "Good Morning America."
*Carol was the lead in the film A Cry in the Night, based on the novel by her mother. The film was shown at the Cannes TV Festival and nationally on U.S. television.
*She was named one of Irish America magazine's Top 100 Irish Americans in 2005.
*Some of Carol's favorite films include The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, The Birds, The Exorcist, Arthur and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

To learn more about this popular author, visit her website. Also, check out Barnes and Nobles' "Meet the Author" page featuring Carol Higgins Clark. Information for this post was found on both sites.