Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris, born November 25, 1951 in Tunica, Mississippi, is a New York Times bestselling author who wrote the "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" novel collection, the 
series of books in which the HBO original series True Blood is based. A mystery writer for over twenty years, Charlaine was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States and now lives in southern Arkansas with her husband, and three children. Though her early works consisted largely of poems about ghosts and, later, teenage angst, she began writing plays when she attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, and began to write books a few years later. Her "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" collection, featuring a telepathic waitress named Sookie Stackhouse, received such good rapport, that it was only a mere seven years later before it was adopted by the HBO network, and branded as their original hit series True Blood.
==Biography==
Charlaine Harris has been a published novelist for over twenty-five years. A native of the Mississippi Delta, she grew up in the middle of a cotton field. Now she lives in southern Arkansas with her husband, her three children, three dogs, and a duck. The duck stays outside.
Though her early output consisted largely of ghost stories, by the time she hit college (Rhodes, in Memphis) Charlaine was writing poetry and plays. After holding down some low-level jobs, she had the opportunity to stay home and write, and the resulting two stand-alones were published by Houghton Mifflin. After a child-producing sabbatical, Charlaine latched on to the trend of writing mystery series, and soon had her own traditional books about a Georgia librarian, Aurora Teagarden. Her first Teagarden, REAL MURDERS, garnered an Agatha nomination.
Soon Charlaine was looking for another challenge, and the result was the much darker Lily Bard series. The books, set in Shakespeare, Arkansas, feature a heroine who has survived a terrible attack and is learning to live with its consequences. 
When Charlaine began to realize that neither of those series was ever going to set the literary world on fire, she regrouped and decided to write the book she’d always wanted to write. Not a traditional mystery, nor yet pure science fiction or romance, DEAD UNTIL DARK broke genre boundaries to appeal to a wide audience of people who just enjoy a good adventure. Each subsequent book about Sookie Stackhouse, telepathic Louisiana barmaid and friend to vampires, werewolves, and various other odd creatures, has drawn more readers. The southern vampire books are published in Japan, Great Britain, Greece, Germany, Thailand, Spain, France, and Russia.
In addition to Sookie, Charlaine has another heroine with a strange ability. Harper Connelly, lightning-struck and strange, can find corpses . . . and that’s how she makes her living.
In addition to her work as a writer, Charlaine is the past senior warden of St. James Episcopal Church, a board member of Mystery Writers of America, a past board member of Sisters in Crime, a member of the American Crime Writers League, and past president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance. She spends her “spare” time reading, watching her daughter play sports, traveling, and going to the movies. 
==Published Works==
===Aurora Teagarden Series===
1. Real Murders
2. A Bone to Pick
3. Three Bedrooms, One Corpse
 
4. The Julius House
5. Dead Over Heels 
*"Deeply Dead" from Murder, They Wrote (short story) 
6. A Fool And His Honey
 
7. Last Scene Alive
 
8. Poppy Done to Death
===Lily Bard Series===
1. Shakespeare's Landlord
 
2. Shakespeare's Champion
 
3. Shakespeare's Christmas 
4. Shakespeare's Trollop 
5. Shakespeare's Counselor 
*"Dead Giveaway" published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (December 2001) 
===Sookie Stackhouse Series===
* Dead Until Dark
* Living Dead in Dallas
* Club Dead
* Dead to the World
*"Fairy Dust" from Powers of Detection
*Dancers in the Dark from Night's Edge (Harlequin novella; a Sookie-universe story without the character of Sookie Stackhouse)
*"One Word Answer" from Bite
* Dead as a Doornail
*. Definitely Dead
*"Tacky" from My Big, Fat Supernatural Wedding(a Sookie-universe story without the character of Sookie Stackhouse)
* All Together Dead
*"Dracula Night" from Many Bloody Returns
* From Dead to Worse
*"Gift Wrap" from Wolfsbane and Mistletoe
*"Unknown Title" from Unusual Suspects
* Dead and Gone (May '09)
* Dead in the Family
* Dead Reckoning
* Deadlocked (May '12)
===Harper Connelly Series===
1. Grave Sight 
2. Grave Surprise 
3. An Ice Cold Grave
4. Grave Secret
===Non-Series===
Sweet and Deadly
 
A Secret Rage
==External Links==
Personal Website
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