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MARY HIGGINS CLARK
Mary
Higgins Clark, the "queen
of suspense"
and
the author whose phenomenal blockbusters have
sold
more than 25 million copies in the U.S.
Mary
Higgins Clark is America's best-selling suspense writer. Born and raised
in New York, M.H. Clark is of Irish descent."The Irish are, by nature storytellers,"
says Clark. She considers her Irish heritage an important influence on
her writing, noting that the Irish are, by nature, storytellers. Mary's
father died when she was ten and and her mother struggled to bring up Mary
and her two brothers. After graduating from high school, Mary went to secretarial
school, so she could get a job and help her mother with the family finances.
After working for three years in an advertising agency, she became a stewardess
on international flights and saw the world. "My run was Europe, Africa
and Asia," Mary recalls. "I was in a revolution in Syria and on the last
flight into Czechoslovakia before the Iron Curtain went down. I flew for
a year and then got married." After a year of traveling, she was married
a neighbor Warren Clark, she had known him since she was 16. Soon after
her marriage she began writing short stories. She sold her first short
story to Extension Magazine in 1956 for $100, after 6 years and forty rejection
slips. "I framed that first letter of acceptance," she recalls. In 1964,
Clark's husband died of a heart attack, leaving her with five children
to support.She went to work writing radio scripts and, in addition, decided
to write books. Every morning, she got up at 5 a.m. and wrote until 7 a.m.
when she helped her children get ready for school. Her first book was a
biographical novel about the life of George Washington was not a success."It
was remaindered as it came off the press," she says of her first try. Next,
she decided to write a suspense novel, "Where Are the Children?",
which became a bestseller and marked a turning point in her life and career.
After years she had put all her energies into her children's education
Clark decided to take the time to do the things she always wanted to do.
In 1974, she entered Fordham University at Lincoln Center and graduated
summa cum laude in 1979 with a B.A. in Philosophy. In May 1988, Mary Higins
Clark returned to her alma mater as commencement speaker. She is a trustee
of Fordham University and a member of the Board of Regents at St. Peter's
College. She is an active member of the Literacy Volunteers. M.H. Clark
has nine honorary doctorates and many awards. Mary has received "The Woman
of Achievement": award from the Federation of Woman's Clubs in New Jersey,
the 1992 "Irish Woman of the Year" award from the Irish-American Heritage
and Cultural Week Committee of the Board of Education of the City of New
York, the 1993 Gold Medal of Honor from the American-Irish Historical Society
and in 1994, the Spirit of Achievement Award from the Albert Einstein College
of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the National Arts Club inaugural
Gold Medal in Education. |
