Mary claire helldorfer biography
- Mary Claire Helldorfer is young adult and children's author.
- I've published 36 books with Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Random House, Penguin, Houghton Mifflin, and Macmillan.
- In real life I also get to be different writers: M.C. Helldorfer, which is the name I was born with and have used on my middle grade novels and picture books.
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There’s Something About Mary Claire
In March of 2009, when Mary Claire Helldorfer first learned that her book Kissed by an Angel had hit USA Today’s Top 150 Books, she was working as a 10th-grade English teacher at Friends School of Baltimore.
“An editor from another company had called to talk to me about an idea I had submitted for an adult book,” recalls the 56-year-old Helldorfer, who uses the nom de plume Elizabeth Chandler for her young adult fiction. “And he commented that Kissed by an Angel was doing really well. I said, ‘I guess so, if you add up all the copies that have been sold since 1995.’ And he said, ‘Don’t you know it was reissued?’ I knew it had never gone out of print,” she says, “but it hadn’t exactly taken the world by storm.”
The book’s rise up the charts is a story in itself. First published in 1995, two sequels followed, and the entire trilogy was reprinted as a single, “bind-up” book in the late ’90s. Then, in the wake of Stephenie Meyer’s blockbuster Twilight series, Helldorfer’s own series on teen love from beyond the grave was re-released in December
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One of the best things about being a writer is that every time you start a new book or series you get to live inside the heart and head of a different person. In real life I also get to be different writers: M.C. Helldorfer, which is the name I was born with and have used on my middle grade novels and picture books for children; and Elizabeth Chandler, the pseudonym I have used for YA novels. Friends call me Mary Claire or M.C.
Like many writers, I’ve earned a living doing various jobs. My happiest work has been teaching college and high school. But teaching is an all-consuming passion, just like writing; and often I have felt as if I couldn’t do both well, so I’ve tried other things. Have you ever wondered how some series authors can publish a pile of books so quickly? People like me ghost write under their names. Ever wonder who’s scripting those passages and sentences on school tests and exercises? Yup, that’s another way of paying bills if you’re good at words. I’ve also worked in the office world.
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Mary Claire Helldorfer
Mary Claire Helldorfer is young adult and children's author. She is a graduate of Mercy High School (Baltimore, Maryland)[1] She has written numerous picture books for children under her real name Mary Claire Helldorfer. She also writes romance novels include Summer in the City, Love at First Click and the romance-mystery Kissed by an Angel under her pen name, Elizabeth Chandler. She is also known for her suspense filled series Dark Secrets.
Dark Secrets series
Dark Secrets 1 (August 4, 2009): the first book in the Dark Secrets series. The book includes two stories, Legacy of Lies and Don't Tell. In Legacy of Lies, Megan has to stay with the uptight grandmother she wants nothing to do with. She's determined to get through the visit without any drama, but when she falls into a twisted love triangle with potentially fatal consequences, Megan may be caught up in her family's legacy in more ways than she realizes. In Don't Tell, Lauren knows that by returning to the town where her mother drowned seven years ago, she'll b
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