MARY HIGGINS CLARK
QUEEN OF SUSPENSE
Turns Another Page in Her Writing Career

Story by Maureen Traxler

After writing at least one suspense novel a year for nearly 25 years, Mary Higgins Clark's first mystery-adventure book for children ages 6 to 10 makes its debut this month. Set in Cape Cod, Ghost Ship is the story of a friendship between two boysÑone visiting his grandmother on summer vacation and the other - a cabin boy for a sea captain who tells of his adventures on the high seas centuries ago.

In an interview with Networking¨ magazine just weeks before the release of Ghost Ship, Clark says she thought it would be a daunting project, but adds that two things eased the task. First, her experience as a radio script writer helped her "tell a much shorter story, 12 pages instead of 450." Second, she was teaming up with her friend and illustrator, Wendell Minor, whose illustrations have graced the covers of some of her novels, including her original classic, Where Are the Children? (1975).

Truth be told, Clark adds, "With six grandchildren and eleven step-grandchildren, I've been telling stories to children for a long time." She credits her background for this book as coming from her reading of The Narrow Land: Myths and Legends of Cape Cod. "I learned a lot from that book," she says, "interesting things about sailing ships, moon cusps and the famous Captain Andrew Hallet."

Not to sidestep her traditional readers, Clark is also coming out this month with a new novel, I Heard That Song Before. A psychological thriller, it takes the reader deep into the mysteries of the human mind. Protagonist Kay Lansing, whose new husband is a "person of interest" in two suspicious and unsolved deaths, finds that Peter is a sleepwalker.

"I've always been fascinated by the mind, multiple personalities, and child memory, and I've written about these subjects," explains Clark, who earned a Bachelor's degree in philosophy from Fordham University. The idea for I Heard That Song Before came from Clark's interest in the stories of two men serving life sentences in prison for killing someone they loved while they were sleep walking. "I thought this was a fascinating premise for a book," she says.

Early interest in writing
"The one talent God gave me was that I was a storyteller," acknowledges Clark. "I started to write from the day I could hold a pencil, and of course, I'm very grateful that that's what worked for me." Her first 10 years of life were filled with wonderful evenings spent at her father's Irish pub, Higgins Bar and Grille in the Bronx, with her entire extended family, sitting around spinning yarns. "No Irishman ever told a story simply," she adds. "I loved the lilt and tilt and cadence of the words." At six years old, a precocious Clark was writing poems, and encouraged by her mom, she would recite them for visitors at their home.

"I was fortunate because my mother thought everything I wrote was positively sacred," Clark says. "Mothers encourage, but editors are so happy to tell you exactly how bad you are."

Convinced that she had talent, Clark regularly kept a journal, and she adds, "I can look back today and see who I was at 16, 22 and 35 years old." She recalls that she was encouraged by her teachersÉwell, most. "My science teacher was not happy that I was writing a short story in class, but I didn't care about Bunson burners and test tubes."

Clark married her neighborhood sweetheart, Warren Clark, and continued to write. Getting up at 5 am, she would work until it was time to get the children off to school. She also started taking writing classes and formed a writer's workshop. Warren was "so encouraging," she says. "He'd happily mind the kids while I went to the workshop, but he really didn't think I could make it. He didn't want to break my heart so he said, 'Let's think of it as a hobby.' My response was always, 'Let's wait and see.'"

For six long years, Clark crafted her stories, submitting work and receiving replies on which editors scrolled, "Not right for us, but try again." Then, after all those years and 40 rejections, she sold her first short story, and like a cunning Irish leprechaun, she called Warren's office and said to his secretary, "Would you please tell him Mary Higgins Clark is on the phone."

Clark believes in the companionship of fellow writers, and says, "They understand that getting a 'try us again' note from an editor is exciting."

Breaking into a career
At her writing class at NYU, her professor encouraged students to take a true incident that interested them and ask two questions: Suppose? and What if? and turn it into fiction. The idea for that first published short story, Stowaway, was born from her short-lived career as a Pan Am stewardess just prior to her marriage to Warren. In addition to the "milk run to Bermuda," she says, she flew to Europe, Africa and Asia, experienced a revolution in Syria, and flew the last flight to Czechoslovakia before the Iron Curtain came down. Focusing on that last flight to Czechoslovakia, she spun the tale of Stowaway. She sold it to Extension Magazine in 1956 for $100, and framed her first letter of acceptance.

Clark continued selling short stories to magazines until the mid-1960s when the market for magazine fiction collapsed. If she wanted to continue writing fiction, she realized that she'd have to write a book. However, her career as a novelist was put on hold when Warren passed away suddenly, just as her father had passed away suddenly when she was 11 years old.

A young widow with five children, she went to work as a radio script writer, writing a five-day-a-week vignette, "Portrait of a Patriot." While working for an advertising agency, she learned the value of concise writing and turned the experience into her first book, Aspire to the Heavens, a biographical novel about George Washington.

"It took three years to write and nobody read it," says Clark. Although her book didn't sell, she wasn't discouraged; she'd just have to find her niche. That's when she turned to her bookshelves.

"I grew up reading the Judy Bolton mystery series and Ngaio Marsh, and moved on to Mignon Eberhart, Agatha Christi and Sherlock Holmes," reveals Clark. "But what I didn't realize was that I was teaching myself how to write suspense because of those stories. When people tell me they'd like to write but don't know what genre, I say, look at your bookshelves. What do you grab when you're on the way to the dentist's office and he always keeps you waiting? What do you curl up with at the end of the day when you just want to escape?"

Calling on life experiences
Clark's stash of experiences is broad, and she says, "All were grist for the mill." After her father passed away and the Depression set in, her family's situation changed drastically. Money was tight. Mrs. Higgins, Mary and her two brothers doubled up in bedrooms so they could rent the other bedrooms for income. She remembers the sign her mother put discreetly by the door: "Furnished Rooms. Kitchen Privileges." The phrase so stuck with her that the name of the book that serves as her memoir is Kitchen Privileges. Clark recalls, "My mother's example taught me resilience. The protagonists of my novels are strong and resourceful womenÑwhen calamity strikes, they carry on."

To make ends meet, Clark traveled by subway to work in downtown Manhattan three afternoons a week and on weekends from the time she was 15. "I never minded working; actually, I got a kick out of it," She recalls. "When I was a hotel switchboard operator, I listened in on everybody, and I loved it. It was like going to the movies." She talks about listening in on Tennessee WilliamsÑthe guy everyone called "that crazy writer with the funny name."

Partnering with Carol Higgins Clark
"Collaborating with my daughter Carol is a thrill," exclaims Clark. The two have co-authored four holiday suspense novels, Deck the Halls (2000), He Sees You When You're Sleeping (2001), The Christmas Thief (2004) and Santa Cruise (2006). She adds, "It's hard work, but we're both dedicated to writing a good book." They discuss "the better word," and "whether a character would do a certain action." They often write while sitting on the porch at Clark's Spring Lake home, looking out on the oceanÉCarol with her fingers on the keys of her laptop. Clark is quite proud of Carol, a successful writer with eight novels of her own and a new book, Laced, to be release in mid-April.

"You absolutely have to know your main characters," demands Clark. "What they do is going to be governed by their mindset. They must be fully developed." Clark likes to play with ideas when she's in-between books. She also enjoys her book tours, saying, "I always like to meet my readers, although traveling has become more irksome, more complicated with delays and security."

Mary Higgins Clark is the author of 25 suspense novels and three collections of short stories. Two of her novels were made into feature films, and many of her other works were made into television films. In 1996 she married John J. Conheeney, the retired CEO of Merrill Lynch Futures, to whom she was introduced by her daughter Patty, who worked at the Mercantile Exchange in Manhattan. The couple lives in Saddle River, New Jersey, and maintains residences in Manhattan, Spring Lake (NJ) and Dennis (MA).

Encouraging words
Clark is a believer in believing in one's self. She encourages people to pursue those things they've always thought they'd like to do, from writing to painting or some area in which they'd like to develop their talent. She often tells retired folks who've always thought about writing to write their life story. "It's such a gift to your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, as well as to those you grew up with," she says.

"Somebody once said, 'If you want to be happy for a year, win the lottery. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, love what you do,'" quotes Clark, adding, "That's the way it is with me-I'll always keep writing.