Rick Reed asked Carolyn Haines:

What was the book or author that inspired you to begin writing?

Carolyn Haines That's a very hard question, because for most of my life, I've lived between the covers of books. I read Nancy Drew, the Black Stallion, Trixie Belden, the Hardy Boys, Robin Hood (when Robin is dying and Little John holds him up to the window to shoot an arrow to determine his grave, I got so upset in study hall my mama had to come get me. I think I was 13.) Books have always impacted me emotionally. The Secret Garden, Poe, Sherlock Holmes, all were part of my middle grade years. I loved the chill the darker books could give. When I was 15, I worked a little part time job at a pharmacy with a spinning book rack (no bookstore in Lucedale) and I would read the entire rack. The Harlequin romances at the top, the fabulous gothics, then down to the lower levels with literature, men's adventure, women's fiction. Here is where I met John Irving and one of his teachers Thomas Williams, Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, Harold Robbins--I just read anything and everything available to me. No one told me what was fine fiction and what was not. I judged the book by how it grabbed me and how it moved me. But I didn't dream of writing fiction until my 8th grade English teacher, Carolyn Nyman (she was my mother's best friend and I was named for her) gave me a copy of Eudora Welty's short stories. In those stories I heard the voice of my Mississippi--the people I grew up with, whose homes I visited for a glass of water when I was riding my horse on a hot summer day. Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD made me realize the power of fiction to point out social wrongs. And then I went to college and was introduced to Lee Smith, Doris Betts ("The Ugliest Pilgrim" will slay you), Flannery O'Connor. These women authors spoke my language. The South, rural people. And I took a fiction writing class or two in college and just started writing for myself. I had no intention of ever trying to publish. I wrote short stories. Some scary, some grounded in the soil of the South. But I never considered a novel. That was far, far above me. But I wrote for love of the story. I'd always loved to tell stories, especially ghost stories. I got in some trouble doing that on occasion because I could scare people. And I did. Without remorse. I had a million stories churning around in my head, and when my life flipped upside down and I needed a source of income, I met a professor from Ole Miss who gave me the name of his literary agent. She ended up representing me. She told me to write a novel. Oh, boy, if I'd known then what I know now, I would have learned how to dig ditches instead! I love writing, but man oh man, it's a tough business. I guess any business that you love is tough because your dreams are at risk. All of these wonderful books and writers have impacted who I am as an author. In the '80s I read BLACK CHERRY BLUES by James Lee Burke, and I was smitten with his amazing talent. In a way, my lack of a formal reading education was the greatest gift in the world because no one tried to force an idea of good or bad on me. I learned to judge for myself. I also learned (the hard way) how important it is to write the story of your heart. So many writers have touched my spirit. Now I write in a lot of different genres because I grew up reading that way. It was all about story and the power of clearly written prose. Characters that could be family or friends to you. Yeah, I'm a story junkie! I know this is a long answer to a simple question, but I hope it helps.

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