Look and Listen

Biography

Born on New Year’s Day 1941, in Huntington, West Virginia, the same day her grandfather was sworn in as the county sheriff for the second time, she was the second West Virginian born that year. Raised when children ran free, played kick-the-can, and worried about little, she can’t recall a time when she didn’t read. Books were her childhood companions. After a high school marriage, two children, and a divorce, Carter entered Marshall College to study English. Throughout a subsequent marriage and life with two more children, she plugged away at her studies. Although it took over twenty years, she graduated from Marshall University with her degree in English and Business. For fifteen years – from 1971-1984 – she directed a rural Appalachian craft cooperative to benefit low-income women. Ladies Home Journal nominated her in 1975 for its "Woman of the Year" award. Her second marriage ended in 1979. In 1985, she moved to Columbus, Georgia, where she was a hospitality industry marketing professional. Three years later, she adopted Atlanta as her hometown to open her own business producing special events to market the hospitality industry. While living in Georgia, she began running and completed several marathons after she was fifty, including the Atlanta, Marine Corps, and New York City Marathons. Research for her debut novel, Father’s Troubles, began after Carter returned to Columbus in 1993 to become the marketing director of a retail shopping mall. When West Virginia and her four grandchildren beckoned ten years later, Carter returned to Huntington where she accepted a position with Goodwill Industries of KYOWVA Area, Inc. Currently, she is the agency’s marketing director. Eager to tell the story long brewing in her soul, Carter joined the maiden class of editor and publisher John Patrick Grace’s memoir and life writing course. She credits that experience with providing the discipline and structure to complete Father’s Troubles, published in 2003. In it, she weaves a richly layered novel over the bare bones of truth from her family’s past to explore the family damage caused by keeping secrets. Upon publication, Father’s Troubles was named a ForeWord Magazine Finalist for Historical Fiction. Carter’s second novel, amo, amas, amat…an unconventional love story (2011), is both a paean to her time in the south and a plea for understanding from those who grew up when gay bashing was a social sport. It’s a moving novel that follows Mary Cate Randolph as she makes her way through the sexually charged 1980s to come to terms with her ingrained homophobia and the true meaning of love. Writing isn’t Carter’s only passion. After years of dabbling in painting and drawing with unsatisfactory results, she took a class in wheel-thrown pottery and fell in love with clay. It wasn’t functional ware she wanted to make, however. Inspired by her collection of English Toby mugs, she began modeling faces – portraits – on thrown porcelain mugs and vases. After studying with several nationally known sculptors for several years, she gave up the wheel. Now Carter is a practicing sculptor creating her own designs as well as executing commissioned portrait busts. Her portrait of Governor William Cabell – Cabell County’s namesake – rests in the rotunda of the Cabell County Courthouse and her bust of Marshall’s Nate Ruffin is in the Marshall University Foundation Center. Her creative works have appeared in numerous shows, at Tamarack’s Dickerson Gallery, and in several West Virginia Juried Exhibitions. In 2008, she was awarded a West Virginia Artists’ Fellowship by the Department of Culture and History for her sculptural work. Currently, Carter lives near her childhood home in Huntington with her husband, Richard Cobb, and their pets.

Inspiration

A compulsive reader since childhood, I believe if one is to write, one must love to read. I've called myself an accidental novelist, but the truth is, I tried to write when I was a child. Told I was plagiarizing "The Pokey Little Puppy," I quit. It took me quite a few years to get the nerve to try again. It was the urging of a close friend that spurred me to write my first novel. Strangely, as I wrote the book, I dreamed scenes in which I could hear the characters talking. In the morning, I simply arose and wrote them down. My second novel was inspired by a derisive comment about gays and lesbians. Infuriated because many of my friends were gay, I steamed, but said nothing. Not being a soapbox kind of gal, I decided to let off that steam in a novel. Writing it assuaged my guilt at keeping quiet that summer day.