Mary Higgins Clark Award
| Mary Higgins Clark | |
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Higgins Clark at the Mazza Museum in 2012
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| Born | Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins December 24, 1927 The Bronx, New York, U.S. |
| Pen name | Mary Higgins Clark |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1975–present |
| Genre | Suspense, Mystery, Psychological thriller |
| Spouse | Warren Clark† (1949–1964; his death); 5 children Raymond Ploetz (1978–1986; annulled) John J. Conheeney (1996–present) |
| Children | 5, including Carol Higgins Clark |
| Website | |
| maryhigginsclark |
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Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark Conheeney (née Higgins; born December 24, 1927), known professionally as Mary Higgins Clark, is an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books has been a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of her novels remained in print as of 2015, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are The Children, in its seventy-fifth printing.
Higgins Clark began writing at an early age. After several years working as a secretary and copy editor, she spent a year as a stewardess for Pan-American Airlines before leaving her job to marry and start a family. She supplemented the family's income by writing short stories. After her husband died in 1964, Higgins Clark worked for many years writing four-minute radio scripts until her agent persuaded her to try writing novels. Her debut novel, a fictionalized account of the life of George Washington, did not sell well, and she decided to leverage her love of mystery/suspense novels. Her suspense novels became very popular, and as of 2007 her books had sold more than 80 million copies in the United States alone. Her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, and former daughter-in-law Mary Jane Clark, are also writers.
Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins was born on Christmas Eve 1927, although some sources mistakenly cite 1929 as the year, the second child and only daughter of Irish immigrant Luke Higgins and his American born wife Nora, also of Irish descent. The United States census gives her age in April 1940 as 12, which indicates her year of birth is 1927, as that was her age at her last birthday, the question asked by census enumerators.
She was born about a year and a half after the birth of her older brother, Joseph. Her younger brother John, followed three years later. Even as a small child, she was interested in writing, composing her first poem at age seven and often crafting short plays for her friends to enact. She began keeping a journal when she was seven years old, noting in her very first entry that "Nothing much happened today."
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