Rising Star Spotlight: Lauren Carr

You’re a prolific mystery writer with over 26 popular novels under your belt and you’re a West Virginia girl! Have you always lived in West Virginia?
Yep, I’m a West Virginia girl born and raised—by way of Ohio and Washington DC...Actually, I lie.
I was born in East Liverpool, Ohio, across the river from Chester, West Virginia, which is where I set the Lovers in Crime Mysteries. I was only born in East Liverpool because Chester didn’t have a hospital. Hancock is in the smallest county in West Virginia.
I was the youngest of four children and the first one in my whole family, including parents, grandparents, etc, to be born in a hospital. My family claims that’s why I’m different from the rest of my family. They mixed up the babies at the hospital.
I was raised on a farm which explains my love of animals. After my father passed away, my mother, and I moved to Lordstown, Ohio,  From there, I moved to Washington, DC. where I worked as an editor for the federal government for ten years. I met my husband, Jack, on a blind date. He was a Navy officer assigned to the Pentagon.
We honeymooned in Harpers Ferry, which is in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. Jack fell in love with the area so we bought our mountaintop home in West Virginia—literally fifteen minutes from the bed-and-breakfast where we honeymooned. The commute to Washington was grueling, though, so I quit to pursue my dream of being a mystery writer.
Is writing a career you originally chose to pursue?
Writers are born to write. They’re storytellers. Yes, there are technical things that every writer must learn to succeed—like proper grammar and punctuation—but you have to be born a writer.
Here’s how you can spot a writer. Ask them, “How’s your day? How did you meet your husband?” Anyone who is not a writer will tell you “Fine” and “We met on a blind date.” End of conversation.
But a writer will grab you by the throat with a hook and then proceed to tell you in detail who, what, when, where, why, and how then establish characters, setting, motives, and include a beginning, middle, and end with a smashing climax
Writers are always writing. Even if their day job is waiting tables or working as a stock broker, they are spinning tales in their minds. It’s what they do, even if they aren’t able to make a career of it.
For many years, mystery writing was a hobby while I did editing. I didn’t actually start writing mysteries full time until after I had my son in 1998.

Read the entire interview in the March 2018 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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