Charlaine Harris
Jean Charlaine Harris Schulz is an American author who specializes in mysteries. She is best known for her book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was adapted as the TV series True Blood. The television show was a critical and financial success for HBO, running seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014.
Harris was born and raised in Tunica, Mississippi. She lives in Texas with her husband; they have three children. She began writing from an early age, and changed from playwriting in college to writing and publishing mysteries, including several long series featuring recurring characters.
Life and career
Harris was born and grew up in Tunica, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. In her early work she wrote poems about ghosts and teenage angst. She began writing plays while attending Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. Her most recent mysteries have been in the urban fantasy genre.After publishing two stand-alone mysteries, Harris began the lighthearted Aurora Teagarden books with Real Murders, nominated as a Best Novel 1990 for the Agatha Awards. Harris wrote several books in the series before the mid-1990s, when she began branching out into other works. She did not resume the series until 1999, with the exception of one short story in an anthology titled "Murder, They Wrote".
In 1996, Harris published the first in the Shakespeare series, featuring cleaning lady detective Lily Bard, set in rural Arkansas. At the time, a New York Times interview with Harris noted that she "live in small-town Arkansas". The fifth book in the series, Shakespeare's Counselor, was published in fall 2001, followed by the short story "Dead Giveaway", published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine in December 2001. Harris has said she is finished with that series.
Next Harris created The Southern Vampire Mysteries series, about a telepathic waitress named Sookie Stackhouse who works in a Northern Louisiana bar. The first book, Dead Until Dark, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery in 2001. Each book follows Sookie as she tries to solve mysteries involving vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural creatures. The series has been published in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Spain, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Argentina, Poland, Serbia, Brazil, Great Britain, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Portugal, Iceland, Czech Republic, Romania, Estonia, and Israel. Harris wrote thirteen novels in the series; the last, Dead Ever After, was published in May 2013. A supplemental book, After Dead, was published in October 2013. The second novel, Living Dead in Dallas, won the 2003 Lord Ruthven Award for Fiction, and the anthology The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories won the 2018 Ruthven Award for Fiction.
October 2005 marked the debut of Harris's new series, entitled Harper Connelly Mysteries, with the release of Grave Sight. The series is told by a young woman named Harper Connelly, who after being struck by lightning, is able to locate dead bodies and to see their last moments through the eyes of the deceased. In October 2010, it was announced Harper Connelly's series had been optioned for a television series named Grave Sight.
The year 2014 marked the debut of the Cemetery Girl series, a graphic novel series co-written with Christopher Golden and illustrated by Don Kramer.
Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League, and has served as a member of the board of Sisters in Crime and as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance.
Personal life
Harris has long been married. She and her husband have three grown children and two grandchildren. She is a former weightlifter and karate student. She is also an avid reader and cinemaphile. Harris formerly resided in Magnolia, Arkansas, where she was the senior warden of St. James Episcopal Church, and as of 2017 lives in Texas.[Aurora Teagarden] series (1990–present)
- Real Murders
- A Bone to Pick
- Three Bedrooms, One Corpse
- The Julius House
- Dead Over Heels
- "Deeply Dead" in Murder, They Wrote
- A Fool and His Honey
- Last Scene Alive
- Poppy Done to Death
- All the Little Liars
- ''Sleep Like a Baby''
Lily Bard (Shakespeare) series (1996–2001)
- Shakespeare's Landlord
- Shakespeare's Champion
- Shakespeare's Christmas
- Shakespeare's Trollop
- Shakespeare's Counselor 0-312-27762-8
Sookie Stackhouse series (2001–14)
| # | Title | Also In | Publication Date | ISBN | Comments | - |
| 1 | Dead Until Dark | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2001 | - | ||
| 2 | Living Dead in Dallas | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Mar 2002 | - | ||
| 3 | Club Dead | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2003 | - | ||
| 4 | Dead to the World | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Mar 2004 | - | ||
| 4.1 | Fairy Dust | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Powers of Detection A Touch of Dead The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | |||
| 4.2 | Dracula Night | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Many Bloody Returns A Touch of Dead The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | |||
| 4.3 | Dancers in the Dark | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Night's Edge | novella | ||
| 5 | Dead as a Doornail | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2005 | ||
| 5.1 | One Word Answer | Bite A Touch of Dead The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 6 | Definitely Dead | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2006 | - | ||
| 6.1 | Tacky | My Big, Fat Supernatural Wedding | Dahlia short story | - | ||
| 7 | All Together Dead | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2007 | - | ||
| 7.1 | Lucky | Unusual Suspects Between the Dark and Daylight A Touch of Dead The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 8 | From Dead to Worse | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2008 | - | ||
| 8.1 | Gift Wrap | Wolfsbane and Mistletoe A Touch of Dead The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 8.2 | Bacon | Strange Brew | makes an offhand reference to Jim Butcher's wizard, Harry Dresden; a Dahlia short story | - | ||
| 9 | Dead and Gone | May 2009 | - | |||
| 9.1 | The Britlingens Go to Hell | Must Love Hellhounds | - | |||
| 9.2 | Dahlia Underground | Crimes by Moonlight | takes place during All Together Dead; a Dahlia short story | - | ||
| 10 | Dead in the Family | May 2010 | - | |||
| 10.1 | Two Blondes | Death's Excellent Vacation The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 10.2 | Small-Town Wedding | The Sookie Stackhouse Companion' The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | novella | - | ||
| 10.3 | A Very Vampire Christmas | Glamour Magazine | Dec 2010 | a Dahlia short story | - | |
| 11 | Dead Reckoning | May 2011 | - | |||
| 11.1 | Death by Dahlia | Down These Strange Streets | a Dahlia short story | - | ||
| 12 | Deadlocked | May 2012 | - | |||
| 12.1 | If I Had a Hammer | Home Improvement: Undead Edition The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 12.2 | Playing Possum | An Apple for the Creature The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 13 | Dead Ever After | May 2013 | The final Sookie Stackhouse novel | - | ||
| 13.1 | The Blue Hereafter | Games Creatures Play The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | - | |||
| 14 | After Dead: What Came Next | The 'World of Sookie Stackhouse' | October 29, 2013 | - | ||
| 15 | Dead But Not Forgotten: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse | November 25, 2014 | - |