Carolyn G. Hart--Author Luncheon
Wednesday, 30 April at 12:00 p.m.
Carolyn Hart is often hailed as America’s Agatha Christie. The author of 36 novels, she has won numerous awards and accolades for ingeniously plotted mysteries. She is the only author to be nominated eight times for the coveted Agatha Award for Best Mystery Novel.
Born in Oklahoma City in 1936, she began her love affair with the mystery by reading Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys and Beverly Gray. As a child during World War II, she quickly learned that the bigger and blacker the type in the newspapers, the more important the story. She grew up fascinated by news and newspapers. She majored in journalism at the University of Oklahoma, receiving a BA in journalism with honors in 1958 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She worked briefly as a reporter until she married a young law student and began a family.
She was reluctant to go back to work as reporter because of the long hours, but she missed writing. In The Writer, she saw the announcement of a contest for a mystery for girls age 8 to 12. Remembering her enchantment with Nancy Drew, she wrote The Secret of the Cellars which won the contest and was published in 1964. She wrote a second juvenile mystery, Dangerous Summer, and three Young Adult suspense novels.
Moving into the mainstream, her first adult mystery, Flee from the Past, was published in 1975. She wrote eight more stand alone novels but was discouraged by lack of interest in mysteries by and about women. This changed in 1987 with the publication of Death on Demand, her first title in the series about young mystery bookseller Annie Laurance and her boyfriend Max Darling. “This book coincided with the great surge of enthusiasm for mysteries about women. I was very fortunate to catch the beginning of that phenomenon.” The series has been a huge success, hitting many national bestseller lists. April Fool Dead in the series was a New York Times extended list bestseller.
In 1994, Hart created a new sleuth, Henrietta O’Dwyer (Henrie O) Collins, a retired newspaperwoman. There are six titles in this series. The most recent Set Sail for Murder.
In 2003, she penned Letter from Home, a stand alone novel set in Oklahoma in 1944. Letter from Home received a starred review in Publishers Weekly: “Hart has created a fabulous two-in-one: an excellent mystery and the poignant memoirs of her heroine. Characters are Steinbeck vivid, as is the sense of time and place as Hart masterfully portrays a small town during WWII.” Letter from Home was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction by the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers at the University of Oklahoma in Tulsa. Letter from Home was named a Best Book of 2003 by Publishers Weekly and won the Agatha for Best Mystery Novel of 2003.
Hart was one of ten mystery authors featured at the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington D.C. in October 2003. In March 2004 she received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Center for the Book. She has been nominated nine times for the Agatha for Best Mystery Novel. She has won three times. In April 2004 she spoke at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. on mysteries in American culture and in April 2005 she was a member of a panel of mystery authors at the Judith Austin Memorial Lecture at the Library of Congress. She received the Ridley Pearson Award at Murder in the Grove, Boise, Idaho, in June 2005 for significant contributions to the mystery field. She will again be one of ten mystery honorees at the National Book Festival September 29, 2007.
Malice Domestic is an annual conference in Alexandria, VA, that honors traditional mysteries with the presentation of Agatha Awards. Hart was Guest of Honor in 1997. In May 2007, she received of the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Hart is a native of Oklahoma City, a Phi Beta Kappa journalism graduate of the University of Oklahoma, and a former president of Sisters in Crime. She is also a member of Authors Guild, Mystery Writers of America, the International Crime Writers Association, and American Crime Writers League. She taught professional writing in the University of Oklahoma School of Journalism from 1982-85. She is the author of 39 mysteries with 2.7 million books in print, winner of three Agatha Awards for Best Novel, two Anthonys for Best Paperback Original and two Macavitys for Best Paperback Original. She lives in Oklahoma City with her husband, Phil. Her website is www.CarolynHart.com.
Carolyn has a new book out, Death Walked In, in which Annie and Max Darling embark on their 18th adventure. Annie and Max are restoring an antebellum home. A murder and stolen gold coins are linked to their house. When Annie discovers the secret of Franklin house, death walks in.
Two recent articles about Carolyn and her writing can be found by clicking below: