Welcome
Biography
Dr. Carolyn J. Brown is a writer, editor, and independent scholar. She attended Duke University and then the University of North Carolina-Greensboro for her Master’s and Ph.D. A Daring Life: A Biography of Eudora Welty was her first book. It was selected by the Mississippi Library Commission to represent the state of Mississippi at the National Book Festival in Washington DC in 2012, and won the Mississippi Library Association’s Award for Nonfiction in 2013. She published her second biography, Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker, in November 2014, which won a special award from the Mississippi Library Association for Juvenile Literature. Her third book, The Artist’s Sketch: A Biography of Painter Kate Freeman Clark, was published in February 2017, and is the first biography of the American Impressionist painter from Holly Springs, Mississippi. In 2021 Brown's published A de Grummond Primer: Highlights of the Children's Literature Collection, which is the first book to provide a history of Lena de Grummond's founding of the world famous children's literature collection and serves as an introduction to major topics in the field of children's literature. Brown has also published essays and articles in several books and journals, including Teaching the Works of Eudora Welty: Twenty-First Century Approaches; Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection; Notes on Mississippi Writers; College Language Journal; the Eudora Welty Review; Persuasions: The Jane Austen Journal; The Journal of Mississippi History; and the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Her newest book, To Dance, To Live: A Biography of Thalia Mara, has just been released and tells the story of dancer Thalia Mara, a dancer, teacher, and arts patron recognized internationally for her efforts in dance education and for bringing world-class ballet to Mississippi.
School Visits
I am available for virtual school visits for all age groups. Please send me an e-mail.
Book Clubs
I am happy to speak to book clubs and library groups. Please send me an e-mail.