At the Fourth Annual NJ Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony & Gala on June 5, 2011, author Mary Higgins Clark, a long time resident of Saddle River NJ, was introduced by her daughter, New York Times writer Carol Higgins Clark. Mary recalls a few stories from her past in the video below: http://youtu.be/w9tGKWXUFco
After high school, Mary had attended secretarial school but wanted to be a writer. It took six years and 40 rejection slips before her first story was published.
In 1956, she and her husband, Warren Clark, moved to New Jersey but in 1964, she was widowed with five children to support. Her daughter recalls how her mother would get up early, before the children were awake, and do her writing between the hours of 5 a.m and 7 a.m, then cook up the best french toast and breakfast sandwiches for her children.
In her early days of writing, Mary recalls an early rejection note which read: “Mrs. Clark: Your stories are light, slight and trite”.
She thought to herself, “I’ll get you baby!”
Mary Higgins Clark has now sold over 100 million books in the U.S. She is the number one fiction author in France and is currently working on her 44th book.
Video by Eva Abreu, NJSocialMedia.com at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), Newark NJ, taken from audience row D, first tier of NJPAC, using Kodak Z1285 point & shoot digital camera.
Eva Abreu is Publisher/Editor of www.NJSocialMedia.com. 
