Brooklyn N.Y. - Best Selling Authors Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol Higgins Clark opened the Kingsborough Community College Best-Selling Author Series with more than 500 Brooklynites in attendance for a chance to hear the two masters of the mystery and suspense genre. The event was the beginning of a Best Selling Author Series sponsored by Kingsborough Community College in the college’s continuing efforts to offer exciting educational and topical programs to the people of Brooklyn.

Both mother and daughter were introduced by Kingsborough President, Dr. Regina S. Peruggi, who also is a long time friend and colleague of Mary Higgins Clark. Dr. Peruggi spoke warmly of both Higgins Clarks, mother and daughter, and of her attendance at Mary Higgins Clarks wedding in 1996 to John Conheeney.

Mary Higgins Clark spoke of how welcome she felt driving to Kingsborough, “My aunt used to have a summer cottage in the Rockaway’s, and these are the same streets I took each year to spend summers with her. I haven’t been here in years, but I felt like I was coming home as I made my way to Kingsborough.”

Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter Carol each spoke with humor and intelligence about how they both began their writing careers and the ups and downs of the writing game. Mother and daughter were so finely attuned to each other that each finished the others sentences and added to each other anecdotes.

Mary Higgins Clark was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. Her fame as a writer was achieved against heavy odds. Her father died when she was ten and her mother struggled to raise her and her two brothers. On graduating from high school, she went to secretarial school, so she could get a job and help with the family finances. After three years of working in an advertising agency, she became a Pan Am stewardess, flying their routes to Europe, Africa and Asia.

In 1949, she married a neighbor, Warren Clark, nine years her senior, whom she had known since she was 16. Soon after her marriage, she started writing short stories, finally selling her first to Extension Magazine in 1956 for $100.

Left a young widow by the death of her husband from a heart attack in 1964, she went to work writing radio scripts and, in addition, decided to try her hand at writing books. Every morning, she got up at 5 AM and wrote until 7 AM, when she had to get her five children ready for school.

Mary Higgins Clark’s first suspense novel, Where Are the Children? was published by Simon & Schuster in 1975. It became a bestseller and marked a turning point in her life and career. It is currently in its 75th edition in paperback and was re-issued in hardcover as a Simon & Schuster classic.

Freed to catch up on things she always wanted to do, she entered Fordham University at Lincoln Center, graduating summa cum laude in 1979, with a B.A. in philosophy. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Fordham University in 1998. She is a past trustee of Fordham University and a current trustee of St. Peter’s College and Providence College. She has eighteen honorary doctorates.

She is # 1 fiction bestselling author in France, where she received the Grand Prix de Literature Policiere in 1980 and The Literary Award at the 1998 Deauville Film Festival. In 2000, she was named by the French Minister of Culture “Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.”

Mary Higgins Clark was chosen by Mystery Writers of America as Grand Master of the 2000 Edgar Awards. An annual Mary Higgins Clark Award sponsored by Simon & Schuster, to be given to authors of suspense fiction writing in the Mary Higgins Clark tradition, was launched by Mystery Writers of America during Edgars week in April 2001. She was the 1987 president of Mystery Writers of America and, for many years, served on their Board of Directors. In May 1988, she was Chairman of the International Crime Congress.

Active in Catholic affairs, Mary Higgins Clark was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, a papal honor. She is also a Dame of Malta and a Lady of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem. She received the Catholic Big Sisters Distinguished Service Award in 1998 and the Graymoor Award from the Franciscan Friars in 1999. Honors she has received include the Gold Medal of Honor from the American-Irish Historical Society (1993), the Spirit of Achievement Award from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University (1994), the National Arts Club’s first Gold Medal in Education (1994), the Horatio Alger Award (1997), the Outstanding Mother of the Year Award (1998), the Bronx Legend Award (1999), the 2001 Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Passionists’ Ethics in Literature Award (2002), the first Reader’s Digest Author of the Year Award 2002 and the Christopher Life Achievement Award in 2003. She is an active advocate and participant in literacy programs.

In 1996, Mary Higgins Clark married John Conheeney, the retired Chairman and CEO of Merrill-Lynch Futures. They live in Saddle River, New Jersey. Between them, they have sixteen grandchildren - Mary’s six and John’s ten.

Carol Higgins Clark’s latest suspense novel, Burned, will be published by Scribner in March.

She is the author of eight bestselling Regan Reilly mysteries, Popped, Decked, which was nominated as Best First Novel for both the Agatha and Anthony Awards, Snagged, Iced, Twanged, published by Warner Books, Fleeced, published by Scribner in October 2001 and Jinxed, published by Scribner in August 2002.

Carol Higgins Clark is co-author with her mother, Mary Higgins Clark, of three holiday suspense novels, Deck the Halls, published by Simon & Schuster/Scribner in October 2000, and He Sees You When You’re Sleeping, published by Simon & Schuster/Scribner in October 2001 and The Christmas Thief. He Sees You When You’re Sleeping was released as a PAX-TV film in December 2002.

Born in New York, Carol Higgins Clark obtained her B.A. from Mt. Holyoke College. She then studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. She starred in Who Killed Amy Lang?, a mini-mystery aired on "Good Morning, America" and performed in New York's Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) in Wendy Wasserstein's play, Uncommon Women and Others, produced as part of the 21st Century Playwrights Festival. She was the lead in the film, A Cry in the Night, based on the novel by Mary Higgins Clark. The film was shown at the Cannes TV Festival and the Montreal Film Festival and nationally on U.S. television.

Carol Higgins Clark, jointly with Mary Higgins Clark, received the University of Scranton's Distinguished Author Award in September 2000.

She has recorded several works by Mary Higgins Clark, including the novels, The Cradle Will Fall, A Cry in the Night, All Through the Night and the stories, Death on the Cape, That's the Ticket, Voices in the Coal Bin, The Body in the Closet. She has also recorded the three suspense novels co-authored with Mary Higgins Clark, Deck the Halls, He Sees You When You’re Sleeping and The Christmas Thief. She has recorded her own novels, Popped, Snagged, Iced, Twanged, Fleeced and Jinxed. She received AudioFile’s Earphones Award of Excellence for her reading of Jinxed.

Carol Higgins Clark lives in New York City.

The series at Kingsborough continues on April 6th with the gifted writer – Susan Isaacs, author of Compromising Positions, Close Relations, Magic Hour and Almost Paradise.

Susan Isaacs, a literacy advocate, is a recipient of the Writers for Writers Award, as well as the John Steinbeck Award. A prolific writer of mysteries, romance and political parodies, she also reviews books for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Newsday.

The authors Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin round out the list of authors scheduled for the series at Kingsborough, on May 17th. The two writers co-wrote the popular series – The Nanny Diaries and recently are the writers of Citizen Girl. Film rights to The Nanny Diaries have been bought by Miramax Films.

The Lecture Series begins at 7:00 pm on April 6th and May 17th, in The MAC Playhouse at Kingsborough Community College. The college is located at 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York. Admission to each event is FREE. For more information and ticket reservations: Call Ms. Susan Dowd at (718) 368-5051