Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Carolyn Wall Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Carolyn Wall

Carolyn Wall

Carolyn Wall Biography

Now a full-time novelist, Carolyn Wall worked for twenty years as a freelance writer, serving as Fiction Editor for Byline magazine and Senior Staff Writer for the award-winning Persimmon Hill magazine. She lectures on university campuses and in conference centers across the country, conducting intense workshops in Fiction and Novel Writing and Journaling. She has taught writing students for twenty-five years and is known for motivating writers everywhere.

In 1995 she wrote for and edited the book Braced Against the Wind, the only literary history of the bombing of Oklahoma City. In 1998, the U.S. Department of the Interior awarded her a writing residency at Devils Tower, Wyoming. She is one of two writers in a five-state region to have received the Crème-de-la-Crème award from the Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc. Her debut novel, Sweeping Up Glass (Random House, 2009) received that year's Oklahoma Book Award for Fiction. Her second novel, Playing With Matches (Random House, 2012), was chosen as Target's July Read for 2012. Her first two novels have sold in nine countries and have been translated into several languages. Wall is currently at work on her third novel.

Carolyn Wall's website

This bio was last updated on 01/08/2014. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Carolyn Wall talks about the birth of her first book, Sweeping Up Glass set in 1938 rural Kentucky.

I was teaching a group of writing students in my living room, and the subject for the evening was “following the heart.” I used baseball as the metaphor. “When the mind sets up chatter,” I said, “the heart can’t remember its name, let alone watch the ball.”

At the time, I’d sold several hundred articles, short stories, columns, and reviews, and as a wife and mother of four, I had become more subservient to the Texaco bill and the electric company than any elusive chamber of the heart.

But that night, I swept my class out the door and, still revved from the emotion of my own lecture, I went to the computer and fingered the keys. Out fell a scene from Sweeping Up Glass... I had no idea where [it] came from.

Still, I knew how to be a stubborn child, so I backed up and let Olivia boil over. I knew what it was like to adore a father, and experience hellfire with a ma’am, so much of this book is culled from my life. The first character to be spun from thin air was Love Alice. Her name, and its reason for being, burst in my head like a kernel of corn popping.

Love Alice was the first chirping robin of spring, and...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Carolyn Wall at BookBrowse
Playing with Matches jacket Sweeping Up Glass jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Carolyn Wall but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Rick Bragg

    Rick Bragg

    Rick Bragg (b. 1959) is the author of seven books, including the best-selling Ava's Man and All Over but the Shoutin'. He is also a regular contributor to Garden & Gun Magazine. He lives in Alabama. (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Sweeping Up Glass

    Try:
    Ava's Man
    by Rick Bragg

  • Charles Frazier

    Charles Frazier

    Charles Frazier was born in 1950 in Asheville, North Carolina and grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1973,  received an M.A. from Appalachian State ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Sweeping Up Glass

    Try:
    Cold Mountain
    by Charles Frazier

We recommend 10 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.