Well Meet Again Mary Higgins Clark Cassette

"Even though it was six o'clock, there was no sense of approaching dawn." -- Mary Higgins Clark

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark Conheeney (n�e Higgins; born December 24, 1927 in the Bronx, New York), known professionally as Mary Higgins Clark, is an America author of suspense novels. Each of her 40-two books has been a bestseller in the Us and diverse European countries, and all of her novels remain in print as of 2007, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are The Children, in its 70-fifth printing. She is a minority owner of the New Jersey Nets.

Higgins Clark began writing at an early age. After several years working as a secretary and copy editor, Higgins Clark spent a year every bit a stewardess for Pan-American Airlines before leaving her task to marry and first a family. She supplemented the family'due south income past writing curt stories. Subsequently her husband died in 1964, Higgins Clark worked for many years writing four-minute radio scripts, until her agent convinced her to try writing novels. Her debut novel, a fictionalized business relationship of the life of George Washington, did not sell well, and she decided to leverage her dearest of mystery/suspense novels. Her suspense novels became very popular, and equally of 2007 her books have sold more 80 million copies in the United States lonely.

Her girl, Carol Higgins Clark, is also a suspense writer.

Quotesmore less

"If you want to be happy for life, love what you practice." "The start 4 months of writing the book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite. My other epitome is pushing a railroad train upwardly the mountain, and it's icy, and I'm in bare anxiety." "The truth is I detest cocktail parties when the only person I know is my supposed date, and he abandons me the infinitesimal we come in the door."

Early on Lifemore less

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins was born December 24, 1927, the 2nd child and only daughter of Irish immigrant Luke Higgins and his wife Nora, who was of Irish descent. Mary Higgins Clark arrived less than 19 months after the nascency of her older brother, Joseph, and her younger brother Johnny followed iii years later. Even as a small child Higgins Clark was interested in writing, composing her first verse form at age seven and oftentimes crafting short plays for her friends to enact. She began keeping a journal when she was seven, noting in her very commencement entry that "Nothing much happened today."

The family lived off the profits of their Irish pub and were adequately well-off, owning a home in the Bronx too as a summer cottage on Long Island Sound. Although the Great Depression began when Higgins Clark was still a babe, her family was initially not affected, and even insisted on feeding the men who knocked on their door looking for work. By the time Higgins Clark was ten, however, the family began to feel financial trouble, as many of their customers were unable to pay the tabs they had run up. Higgins Clark's father was forced to lay off several employees and work longer hours, spending no more than a few hours at domicile each day. The family unit was thrown into further turmoil in 1939, when immature Mary returned home from an early Mass to discover that her begetter had died in his slumber.

Nora Higgins, now a widow with 3 immature children to support, soon discovered that few employers were willing to hire a 52-year-old woman who had non held a chore in over fourteen years. To pay the bills, Higgins Clark was forced to motion out of her bedroom and then that her female parent could rent it out to paying boarders.

Six months after their begetter'southward death, Higgins Clark'south elder blood brother cutting his pes on a piece of metal and contracted severe osteomyelitis. Higgins Clark and her mother prayed constantly for him, and their neighbors came en masse to give blood for the many transfusions the young boy needed. Despite the dire predictions of the doctors, Joseph Higgins survived. Higgins Clark credits his recovery to the power of their prayers.

When Higgins Clark graduated from Saint Francis Xavier Grammar Schoolhouse she received a scholarship to continue her education at the Villa Maria Academy, a school run by the nuns of the Congregation de Notre Dame de Montreal. In that location, the principal and other teachers encouraged Higgins Clark to develop her writing, although they were somewhat less than pleased when she began spending her class fourth dimension writing stories instead of paying attention to the lesson. At sixteen Higgins Clark made her first try at publishing her work, sending an entry to True Confessions which was rejected.

To help pay the bills, she worked as a switchboard operator at the Shelton Hotel, where she often listened in to the residents' conversations. In her memoir she recalls spending much fourth dimension eavesdropping on Tennessee Williams, but complained that he never said annihilation interesting. On her days off, Higgins Clark would window shop, mentally choosing the apparel she would wear when she finally became a famous author.

Despite Higgins Clark'south contribution to the family finances, the money her female parent earned babysitting was non enough, and the family lost their house and moved into a small three-room flat. When Joseph graduated from loftier schoolhouse in 1944, he immediately enlisted in the Navy, both to serve his land during war and to help his mother pay her bills. Six months after his enlistment he contracted spinal meningitis and died. Although the family mourned Joseph'south death securely, as his dependent, Nora Higgins was guaranteed a alimony for life, and no longer needed her daughter's help to pay the bills.

Early Careermore less

Before long after Joseph died, Higgins Clark graduated from high school and chose to nourish Woods Secretarial Schoolhouse on a partial scholarship. Afterward completing her coursework the post-obit twelvemonth, she accepted a job as the secretarial assistant to the head of the creative department in the internal advertising division at Remington-Rand. She presently enrolled in evening classes to learn more about ad and promotion. Her growing skills, as well as her natural beauty, were noticed past her boss and others in the company, and her task was expanded to include writing catalog copy (alongside futurity novelist Joseph Heller) and to model for the company brochures with a then-unknown Grace Kelly.

Although she enjoyed her job, Higgins Clark'due south imagination was sparked past an acquaintance's casual comment, "God, it was beastly hot in Calcutta." Inspired to become a flight attendant like her associate, Higgins Clark underwent rigorous interviews to earn a position equally a stewardess for Pan American Airlines, making v dollars fewer a week than her secretarial task. Her supervisor at Remington-Rand hosted a goodbye dinner for her, and Higgins Clark invited her neighbour, Warren Clark, whom she had admired for years, to be her date. Past the end of the evening Warren Clark had informed her that he thought she should work as a stewardess for a yr and so they should be married the post-obit Christmas. Higgins Clark accepted the somewhat unorthodox proposal.

For most of 1949, she worked the Pan Am international flights, traveling through Europe, Africa and Asia. Ane of her flights became the final flight immune into Czechoslovakia before the Iron Drape brutal. On another of her flights, Higgins Clark escorted a 4 year one-time orphaned child down the steps of the airplane into the waiting arms of her adoptive mother, a scene that was heavily televised.

At the end of her year of flying, on December 26, 1949, Higgins Clark happily gave up her career to marry Warren Clark. To occupy herself, she began taking writing courses at NYU and, with some of her classmates, formed a writing workshop in which the members would critique each other's works in progress. The workshop, which persisted for virtually forty years, met weekly, and at each coming together two members would take 20 minutes each to present their latest work. The other members would then have 3 minutes each to offering constructive criticism.

One of her professors at NYU told the course that they should develop plot ideas by reading newspapers and request "Suppose...?" and "What If." Higgins Clark says she still gets many of her ideas by asking those questions, along with "Why?" For her first NYU writing assignment she used this method to expand her own experiences into a short story called "Stowaway", about a stewardess who finds a stowaway from Czechoslovakia on her plane. Although her professor offered high praise for the story, Higgins Clark was continually frustrated in her attempt to detect a publisher. Finally, in 1956, subsequently half-dozen years and 40 rejections, Extension Magazine agreed to purchase the story for $100.

Whilst those 6 years were devoid of professional person milestones, on a personal level Higgins Clark and her married man were very busy. Their first kid, Marilyn, was born nine months subsequently their wedding, with Warren Jr. arriving xiii months afterward, and a third child, David, built-in two years after his brother. Two months later Higgins Clark'southward curt story sold, the fourth baby made her appearance and was promptly named Carol, afterwards the heroine in her female parent's story.

After selling that first brusque story, Higgins Clark began regularly finding homes for her works. Through the writer's workshop she met an agent, Patricia Schartle Myrer, who represented Higgins Clark for twenty years until her retirement, and became such a expert friend that Higgins Clark named her 5th and last child for her.

While Warren worked and Higgins Clark wrote, they encouraged their children to find ways to earn money besides, with all five children eventually taking professional acting and modeling jobs. Immature Patty served as a Gerber baby, while David was featured in a national United Way advertizement. Higgins Clark herself filmed a television commercial for Fab laundry detergent. The commercial, which aired during the I Dearest Lucy show, earned her plenty money that she and Warren were able to take a trip to Hawaii.

In 1959, Warren Clark was diagnosed with severe angina, and, although he curtailed his activities on his dr.'s gild, he suffered within the next five years, each fourth dimension returning from the hospital in poorer health. After the last centre attack in 1964 they felt that Warren would exist unable to work again, so Higgins Clark called a friend who wrote scripts for radio shows to see if there were any job openings. The day that she accepted a job writing the radio segment "Portrait of a Patriot," Warren suffered a fatal centre attack. His mother, who was visiting at the time, collapsed at his bedside upon discovering that he was dead. In i nighttime, Higgins Clark had lost her husband and her mother-in-law.

Aspire to the Heavens more less

Higgins Clark'due south initial contract to be a radio scriptwriter obligated her to write 65 four-infinitesimal programs for the Portrait of a Patriot series. Her work was good enough that she was soon asked to write ii other radio series. This feel of fitting an entire sketch into iv minutes taught Higgins Clark how to write cleanly and succinctly, traits that are incredibly of import to a suspense novel, which must advance the plot with every paragraph. Despite the security offered by her new job, coin was tight in the start as she strove to raise 5 children aged v to thirteen alone. For their first Christmas without Warren, Higgins Clark's only gifts to her children were personalized poems describing the things she wished she could accept purchased for them.

By the late 1960s, the short story marketplace had collapsed. The Saturday Evening Postal service, which in 1960 named Higgins Clark'southward short story "Beauty Contest at Buckingham" one of their ten all-time of the twelvemonth, had decided to stop publishing fiction, and many of the popular ladies magazines were focusing on cocky-help articles instead. Because her short stories were no longer able to find a publisher, Higgins Clark's agent suggested that she try writing a full-length novel. Leveraging her inquiry and experience with the Portraits of a Patriot serial, Higgins Clark spent the side by side three years writing a fictionalized business relationship of the relationship between George and Martha Washington, Aspire to the Heavens. It is too about George Washington and the love for his house. The book did sell, and although the advance was pocket-size, information technology gave Higgins Clark conviction that she could indeed finish a total-length book and find a publisher. The novel "was remaindered as information technology came off the printing," and, to make matters worse, four months after the publication of the novel, Higgins Clark's female parent Nora Higgins died.

Suspense Genremore less

To ensure that her children would not have to struggle financially, Higgins Clark was determined that they should accept good educations. To provide a adept example she entered Fordham University at Lincoln Center in 1971, graduating summa cum laude in 1979, with a B.A. in philosophy. Her children followed her example. The two eldest, Marilyn and Warren, have get judges, and Patty works at the Mercantile Exchange in New York City. David is the president and CEO of Talk Marketing Enterprises, Inc, and Ballad has authored many popular suspense novels.

During this time Higgins Clark became increasingly frustrated with her employer, and, although 2 of her children were partially dependent on her for their higher tuition, she quit her job and joined 2 of her former colleagues in forming their own visitor to write and market place radio scripts. To scrape up the $5000 she needed to start the business, Higgins Clark was forced to pawn her date ring, and, for the eight months it took the visitor to become profitable, she did not receive a salary, farther straining the family finances.Higgins Clark continued writing fifty-fifty during these hard times. Encouraged by her agent to try writing some other book, Higgins Clark returned to the suspense stories that she loved as a child and which had provided her first success equally a short story author. While she was in the midst of writing the story, her younger brother Johnny died, leaving her the sole surviving member of her family. To temporarily forget her heartache, Higgins Clark threw herself into her writing, and soon finished the novel.

Very quickly afterward the novel, Where are the Children? was completed, Simon and Schuster agreed to purchase it for the relatively small sum of $3000. Three months later, in July 1974, Higgins Clark received word that the paperback rights for the novel had sold for one hundred k dollars. For the commencement time in many years she had no firsthand financial worries.

Where Are the Children? became a bestseller and was favorably reviewed. Two years after its publication Higgins Clark sold her 2d suspense novel for $ane.5 million.

Other Writingsmore less

Higgins Clark's debut novel nearly George Washington, Aspire to the Heavens was retitled Mountain Vernon Love Story and rereleased in 2002, the aforementioned year every bit her autobiography, Kitchen Privileges, which relied heavily on the journals she has kept all of her life. In 2006 Higgins Clark announced that she would be fulfilling one of her dreams by publishing her beginning children's book. Ghost Transport was published by Simon and Schuster, who take also published her suspense novels.

She has also written several Christmas themed mystery novels with her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark. Although popular with readers, some critics have complained that the books are of lesser quality than the bulk of Mary's work, partly because the tone is much lighter than her solo output.

Personal Lifemore than less

Higgins Clark dated throughout her widowhood, and underwent a "disastrous" wedlock in 1978 that was annulled several years later. In 1996, she remarried, to John J. Conheeney, the retired CEO of Merrill Lynch Futures, after they were introduced past her daughter, Patty. The couple lives in Saddle River, New Bailiwick of jersey and also have homes in Manhattan, Spring Lake, New Jersey, and Dennis, Massachusetts.

In 1981, Higgins Clark happened to exist in Washington, D.C. the day President Ronald Reagan was shot. Because she had a printing pass she was able to join the media waiting to hear the President's prognosis. When the doctor finally arrived to start the press conference, Higgins Clark was one of the few people chosen to ask a question.

Earlier beginning the actual writing of her books, Higgins Clark prefers to develop an outline and perhaps detailed character biographies. Each chapter is continuously revised as she writes, then that when she is ready to move on to the next chapter, the current chapter is considered done and is sent directly to her editor. By the time the editor receives the concluding chapter, the book is primarily done.

Inventiveness abounds in Higgins Clark's office, a tower-like room featuring skylights and windows, located on the tertiary floor of her firm. Every morning after a light breakfast, Higgins Clark arrives in her office around viii a.one thousand. and works until most two pm, unless she is almost the terminate of her book, when she might extend her schedule to work up to 17 hours per day. Once a yr Higgins Clark lectures on a prowl ship, allowing her to travel and to do some writing in a more novel location.

Successmore than less

Popular reception

Equally of 2007, Higgins Clark has written twenty-four suspense novels, which have sold over 80 1000000 copies in the United states of america. All of her suspense novels have been best-sellers, and as of 2007 all are still in print, including Where are the Children?, which is in its 75th press. In 2001, the hardcover edition of Higgins Clark'south On the Street Where Y'all Alive was Number One on the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller listing at the same time that the paperback version of her novel Before I Say Good-farewell reached Number One on the New York Times Paperback Besteller listing. Her books are also number i bestsellers in France, and take earned her the stardom of being named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in French republic in 2000. She has also been honored in French republic with the Thousand Prix de Literature Policier (1980) and the Deauville Film Festival Literary Award (1999).

Known every bit "The Queen of Suspense", Higgins Clark is a "primary plotter" who has the ability to slowly draw out the tension while making the reader recollect everyone is guilty. Her novels feature potent, contained immature women who find themselves in the midst of a problem that they must solve with their own courage and intelligence. The heroines run into every bit real people who brand sensible decisions, which makes it easier for readers, who sometimes think " "that could take happened to me, or to my to daughter," to chronicle to the situations. Higgins Clark's books are written for adults, yet because she chooses not to include explicit sex or violence in her stories, they have become pop with children as young equally twelve.

Many of the books deal with crimes involving children or with telepathy. While Higgins Clark is well enlightened that many people claiming to be psychics are behaving fraudulently, she believes that she has met people with genuine ESP powers. Higgins Clark'south mother, on looking at a photo of her eighteen year old son in his make new Navy apparel blues told her daughter that "He has expiry in his eyes," and the immature human died soon subsequently. A psychic Higgins Clark visited just as her 2nd novel, Where Are the Children, was being published in paperback told her that she would become very famous and brand a great deal of coin. Although at the time she laughed off the prediction, the following calendar week her novel reached the bestseller lists and she sold the motion-picture show rights shortly subsequently, truly launching her career.

Disquisitional reception

Higgins Clark has won numerous awards for her writing. In add-on to those previously referenced, she has won the Horatio Alger Award (1997) and the Passionists' Ideals in Literature Award (2002), too every bit the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University Spirit of Accomplishment Award (1994) and the National Arts Club's Gold Medal in Pedagogy (1994). She has been awarded eighteen honorary doctorates, including ane from her alma mater, Fordham University.

Her success has also been recognized by groups representing her heritage. The American-Irish gaelic Historical Society granted her the Golden Medal of Honor in 1993, and in 2001 she won the Ellis Island Medal of Accolade. She has likewise been named a Bronx Legend (1999).

Higgins Clark has served every bit the Chairman of the International Offense Congress in 1988 and was the 1987 president of the Mystery Writers of America. For many years she too served on the Lath of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America. Simon and Schuster, which have published all of Higgins Clark's novels and in the tardily 1990s signed her to a $64-million, four book contract, have funded the Mary Higgins Clark Accolade, given by the Mystery Writers of America to authors of suspense fiction for each of the ten years between 2001 and 2011. The announcement that an award would be given in her award was made at the 55th Almanac Edgar Allan Poe Awards, where Higgins Clark was inducted as a Chiliad Master.

Her devotion to her religion has also been widely recognized. In the highest honor that can be offered to a layperson past the Pope, Higgins Clark has been made a Dame of the Club of St. Gregory the Great, and has also been honored equally a Dame of Malta and a Dame of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. The Franciscan Friars take given her a Graymoor Award (1999) and she has been awarded a Christopher Life Achievement Award. Higgins Clark besides serves as a board member for the Catholic Communal Fund and as a member of the Board of Governors at Hackensack Hospital.

2006 - Le Voleur De Noel [The Robber of Christmas - The Christmas Thief Alvirah Meehan, Regan Reilly - French Edition] (Paperback)

pottersirstee.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.paperbackswap.com/Mary-Higgins-Clark/author/

Share this post