Patricia Cornwell - 1956
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I. Biography Patricia Cornwell was born in Miami, Florida in June 1956. Her parents divorced when she was 7. She moved with her mom and her two brothers to Montreat, North
Carolina, where she lived a good part of her life. Ruth and Billy Graham lived right down the road from her house. It was Ruth Graham who gave her leather bound journal and told her to write.
She transferred from Kings College, Tennessee, to Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina (just north of Charlotte). After she graduated, she married her past English
professor, Charles Cornwell. He was seventeen years older than her. Cornwell started reporting for the Charlotte Observer in 1979. In 1984, she became a police reporter, and took
a job in the Virginia Medical examiner's office. She worked there for six years, for a technical writer, then as a computer analyst. She was also a volunteer city cop; it was then when she
got her first experience of policing. In 1988, Cornwell chose not to be a preacher's wife anymore, so she and Charles Cornwell got a divorce. In 1983, Patricia Cornwell wrote A Time for Remembering
, a biography of Ruth Bell Graham, Billy Graham's wife. This was her first book. A new version was published in 1997. It is called Ruth, a Portrait: The Ruth Bell Graham Story. In between 1984 and 1986, she
wrote three books, but all of the books were rejected. Upset, she wrote to Sara Ann Freed, an editor at Mysterious Press. Freed told her to dump the male detective who was then her
main character. She suggested elaborating on Scarpetta, who was only a minor character. So in 1990, Patricia Cornwell's first novel was published, Postmortem.
Cornwell has just signed a new contract worth $24 million with the publisher, GP Putnam, for 3 new Scarpetta mysteries. II. Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is North Carolina's largest city and is located in the southern part of the state. Charlotte covers 234 square miles. Charlotte is called the Queen City and was named after
Charlotte Sophia, the wife of King George III of England. Estimated population in 1998 was 504,637. Average daily temperature in January is 40.5 degrees and in July it's 78.5 degrees.
Charlotte is the second largest banking center in the United States. The Catawba River runs by Charlotte and was dammed by Duke Power to form two major man-made lakes, Lake Norman to the North and Lake Wylie to the South.
North Carolina has three major league sports teams in Charlotte: Carolina Panthers, which is the professional football team; the Charlotte Hornets, which is the men's professional
basketball team; and the Charlotte Sting, which is the women's professional basketball team. III. Quotes "[In my free time] cook for friends, fly helicopters, walk the beach, and play tennis and golf.
I also work out five to six times a week. Being physically fit is very important to me and to my research, which can, at times, be very physically demanding."
"Fan mail is very important to me. To date we're working hard to go through all of it very carefully and to answer it. Unfortunately, it simply isn't possible for me to personally reply
except on rare occasions. I just couldn't do that and still find the time to do the research I need to do to keep writing." "I don't think anyone 'influenced' me to write crime novels. Dr. Fierro, of course, mentored
me and still does. She is a perfect example of a well-trained, brilliant mind that just happens to be in a woman's body. But neither Scarpetta nor any of my characters are based on real people."
"When I first went to the morgue, I had phobias about death. Then I came to see that a dead body is like a light bulb that's gone out. The body is the same, but the energy that lights up the eyes and the face isn't there."
"It's a crime if successful authors don't support literacy. I challenge them all to write a check." Cornwell did, for 1 million dollars! IV. Literary Works
Postmortem NY, Scribners 1991 V. Cornwell on the Web
Body Of Evidence NY, Scribners 1991
All That Remains NY, Scribners 1992
Cruel & Unusual NY, Scribners 1993
The Body Farm NY, Scribners 1994
From Potter's Field NY, Scribners 1995
Cause of Death NY, Putnam, July 1996
Hornet's Nest NY, Putnam, January 1997
Unnatural Exposure NY, Putnam, July 1997
Point of Origin NY, Putnam, July 1998
Southern Cross NY, Putnam, January 1999
Black Notice NY, Putnam
The Last Precinct November 2000
http://www.nesales.com/cornaud.htm
http://pweb.netcom.com/~dinos/Cornpage.html
http://www.bartleby.com/65/no/NorthCar.html
This essay was submitted by a student of Leslie Andres, a teacher at Lake Norman Charter School in Huntersville, North Carolina.