| Birth Name: | Charlaine Harris |
| Birth Date: | 25 November 1951 |
| Birth Place: | Tunica, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Novelist |
| Alma Mater: | Rhodes College |
| Genre: | Mystery fiction / Southern Gothic |
| Notableworks: | The Southern Vampire Mysteries / True Blood |
| Spouse: | [1] |
| Children: | 3 |
| Awards: | Lord Ruthven Award (2003 and 2018) Inkpot Award (2010)[2] |
Charlaine Harris Schulz (born November 25, 1951) is an American author who specializes in mysteries.[3] 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 a small town in the Mississippi River Delta area of the United States. She lives in Texas with her husband; they have three children.[3] 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.
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.[4] She did not resume the series until 1999, with the exception of one short story in a Murder, She Wrote 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[d] 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.[5] A supplemental book, After Dead, was published in October 2013.[6] The second novel, Living Dead in Dallas, won the 2003 Lord Ruthven Award for Fiction,[7] and the anthology The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories won the 2018 Ruthven Award for Fiction.[8]
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.[9] 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.[10]
Harris is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the American Crime Writers League,[11] as well as a member of the board of Sisters in Crime, and alternated with Joan Hess as president of the Arkansas Mystery Writers Alliance until Hess' death in 2017.
Harris has long been married. She and her husband have three grown children and two grandchildren. She is a former weightlifter and karate student,[12] 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,[13] and as of 2017 lives in Texas.[14]
5.1. "Dead Giveaway" published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (December 2001)
For more detailed information see The Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood.
| 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 | Powers of Detection
The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | ||||
| 4.2 | Dracula Night | Many Bloody Returns
The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | ||||
| 4.3 | Dancers in the Dark | Night's Edge | novella | |||
| 5 | Dead as a Doornail | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2005 | |||
| 5.1 | One Word Answer | Bite
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[15] | |||
| 7 | All Together Dead | Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | May 2007 | |||
| 7.1 | Lucky | Unusual Suspects Between the Dark and Daylight 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
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 VacationThe Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | ||||
| 10.2 | Small-Town Wedding | The Sookie Stackhouse Companion' | novella | |||
| 10.3 | A Very Vampire Christmas | Glamour Magazine | Dec 2010 | a Dahlia short story[17] | ||
| 11 | Dead Reckoning | May 2011 | ||||
| 11.1 | Death by Dahlia | Down These Strange Streets | a Dahlia short story[18] | |||
| 12 | Deadlocked | May 2012 | ||||
| 12.1 | If I Had a Hammer | Home Improvement: Undead EditionThe Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | ||||
| 12.2 | Playing Possum | An Apple for the CreatureThe Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | ||||
| 13 | Dead Ever After | May 2013 | The final Sookie Stackhouse novel | |||
| 13.1 | The Blue Hereafter | Games Creatures PlayThe 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 |
| Anthology or Collection | Contents | Publication Date | ISBN | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Murder, They Wrote | "Deeply Dead" | 1997 | ||
| Powers of Detection | "Fairy Dust" | Oct 2004 | ||
| Night's Edge | "Dancers in the Dark" | Oct 2004 | ||
| Bite | "One Word Answer" | Sep 2005 | ||
| My Big, Fat Supernatural Wedding | Tacky | Oct 2006 | ||
| Many Bloody Returns | "Dracula Night" | Sep 2007 | ||
| Blood Lite | "An Evening with Al Gore" | Oct 2008 | ||
| Wolfsbane and Mistletoe | "Gift Wrap" | Oct 2008 | ||
| Unusual Suspects | "Lucky" | Dec 2008 | ||
| "Bacon" | Jul 2009 | |||
| Must Love Hellhounds | "The Britlingens Go to Hell" | Sep 2009 | ||
| Sookie Stackhouse 8 Copy Boxed Set | Dead Until Dark | Sep 2009 | ||
| Between the Dark and Daylight | "Lucky" | Sep 2009 | ||
| A Touch of Dead | "Fairy Dust" "Dracula Night" "One Word Answer" "Lucky" "Gift Wrap" | Oct 2009 | ||
| Crimes by Moonlight | "Dahlia Underground" | Apr 2010 | ||
| Death's Excellent Vacation | "Two Blondes" | Aug 2010 | ||
| Delta Blues | "Crossroads Bargain" | 2010 | ||
| Home Improvement: Undead Edition | "If I Had a Hammer" | Aug 2011 | ||
| The Sookie Stackhouse Companion | "Small-Town Wedding" | Aug 2011 | ||
| An Apple for the Creature | "Playing Possum" | Sep 2012 | ||
| Down These Strange Streets | "Death by Dahlia" | Oct/Nov 2011 | ||
| The World of Sookie Stackhouse | "After Dead: What Came Next" | Oct 2013 | An anthology with interviews, FAQ, recipes, and more | |
| Games Creatures Play | "The Blue Hereafter" | Apr 2014 | ||
| Inherit the Dead | "Five" | 2014 | ||
| Urban Allies | "Blood for Blood" | 2016 | ||
| Matchup | "Dig Here" | 2017 | ||
| The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories | "Fairy Dust" (2004) "Dracula Night" (2007) "One Word Answer" (2005) "Lucky" (2008) "Gift Wrap" (2008) "Two Blondes" (2010) "Small-Town Wedding" (2011) "If I Had a Hammer" (2011) "Playing Possum" (2012) "In the Blue Hereafter" (2014) | Nov 2017 | (hardcover), (ebook) | |
| Heroic Hearts | "The Return of the Mage" | 2022 |
Her series of novels The Southern Vampire Mysteries was adapted into the show True Blood. The series lasted seven seasons and totaled 80 episodes. It was nominated for dozens of awards. True Blood aired on HBO. The show was also the most viewed show on HBO since The Sopranos.
In 2014, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries began adapting Harris' Aurora Teagarden novels into a series of television films, starring Candace Cameron Bure.[21]
Harris's series Midnight, Texas was developed as a TV series by NBC and began airing on their network in 2017.[22]