Earlene Fowler has earned unprecedented acclaim for her "compelling" (Booklist), "brilliantly crafted" (The Mystery Zone) mysteries featuring folk-art expert Benni Harper. In Arkansas Traveler, Benni returns to the small Arkansas town where she spent her childhood summers, hoping to reconnect with her friends and family. But Sugartree isn't the peaceful place she remembers. It's torn apart by racial tensions-and murder... AUTHORBIO: Earlene Fowler was raised in La Puente, California, by a Southern mother and a Western father. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Allen, a purple pickup truck, and twenty-five pairs of cowboy boots. She is currently working on the next Benni Harper mystery.
Greetings from a native Southern Californian!
I've been married 37 years to my high school sweetheart, Allen, who was born in Kansas. We met when we were fifteen. We don't have children, but are owned by a spoiled and extremely intelligent Pembroke Welsh corgi named Boudin. We call him Boo. Though I'm a native Southern Californian, my parents are not. My father was born in Colorado and grew up in a migrant worker family. My mother's family were cotton sharecropers in Arkansas. I've been writing since I was in my late-twenties. I published my first novel, Fool's Puzzle, when I was in my late thirties. I like to ride horses when I can (and luckily, have friends who own horses), walk my dog, travel with my husband, sometimes do scrapbooking when I have time. I have three sisters. I'm the number two sister.
I was named after my father and my grandfather. Both of them are named Earl. The first book I remember reading by myself was Curious George. I think it was the one where he went to the circus. My favorite fictional character is Old Yeller. He had courage and loyalty, two virtues I admire greatly. If I wasn't a writer, I'd love to be a dog trainer. Back in the 1980's, for a year and a half, I taught a weekly craft class at a retirement home in Covina, California. My youngest member was in her late sixties; my oldest was ninety-eight. Those fifteen women taught me way more than I ever taught them. I love strawberry ice cream and fried tacos. Together or separately. Doesn't matter.
