A One-On-One Interview With Award-Winning Mystery, Suspense, & Thriller Novelist, Kim Carter.

Having grown up in Fairburn, Kim Carter moved to Newnan with her husband, Julius, seven years ago.

Her writing room is adorned with signed photographs and movie memorabilia from Angela Lansbury and actor Ari Lehman, the original young Jason from “Friday the 13th,” among the multitude of macabre decor. A life-size Michael Myers mannequin leers at Carter from one corner of the room while One-Eyed Willie, the skeleton from the Goonies, sits on an opposite wall, keeping an eye on her writing.

“This is something that my husband had done before he passed away, and I know it’s probably rather creepy to the average person, but there’s a lot of really cool stuff in here. I don’t write horror – I’m not a Stephen King or a Dean Koontz,” she explains. “I just love to collect all the cool things. I have a sound machine, and I’ll cut the lights off, and it’s really inspiring.”

“I think writers are very eclectic, we’re weird people,” she adds. “We write because it’s who we are. It’s what leads us to start fifteen projects at once, even though they may not ever get completed, or even see the light of day.” Carter started writing in 1999. “It was when an illness left me homebound that I turned to writing as a form of therapy,” she says. What started with a sentence, a paragraph, and then a couple of pages turned into a book. “It was my story; it was the beginning of finding myself and retrieving my health,” says Carter.

Friends and neighbors read her first manuscript, which came to them rolled up and held together with rubber bands, and became fully invested in the story and characters. This encouraged her to keep writing. “We all have a story in us. We’re actually living one every day,” she explains.

For her second book, Carter says, “My faithful group came through again and read the book in small sections, rolled up with rubber bands. I had garnered more support by then, especially from my husband, Julius, who was convinced they needed to be published. I’d love to flippantly say, ‘That’s when we were off to the races. But nothing goes as planned. That is one thing of which I’m certain.”

Four books and two publishers later, Carter says her writing career stagnated. “The people who read them seemed to like them, but I wasn’t within reach of a broad audience.”

Losing confidence, writing for deadlines and not for fun, Carter also began experiencing more health problems. “I left several projects incomplete, turned the computer off, and closed my office door. It was no longer therapeutic but too challenging. I was done with writing.” Slipping into depression, Carter says she received a wakeup call from her best friend, Kelly Keylon. Says Carter, “Kelly says, ‘You’re too good, you’re not going to quit – if I have to get these books out there myself, I’ll do it.’ And he did!”

They revisited her older novels and updated them. Re-inspired, Carter says her hands were soon tap-dancing across the keys once again. “My publicist, Catherine Lyon, worked day and night for meager wages, and we secured the talented Keith Saunders as a cover designer,” she says.

Her seventh release, “Dark Secrets of the Bayou,” was released in late November 2020, with over 160+ Amazon reviews. Kim Carter says her eighth book, ” The Root Of All Evil, ” was released as part of the ‘Clara and Iris’ trilogy titled “The Root Of All Evil,” released on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2024. Carter’s new release in the ‘Clara and Iris ‘ trilogy will be available from Amazon on November 1st, 2025, making it a total of nine novel releases to her literary credit.

“Every month, my girl Cat (Townsend-Lyon) calls to tell me where my books have been sold, reaching places I’ve never even visited, the U.K., Canada, Australia, and even Japan and Spain, while also being featured in ‘The New Post!” Carter, who has always loved murder mysteries, goes back to her high school days when she watched “Murder She Wrote” with her family. Reading various mystery authors helped her develop her own writing style.

Previous educator and close friend Juli Simpson has also been instrumental in helping Carter with her writing and ideas. “So many times I will paint myself into a corner and then I’m like, how am I feasibly going to get out of this where it’s believable?”

Kim Carter never knows what will inspire her with an idea for a book.

“It may be a place that’s both beautiful and creepy, or it may be just something that a person says that triggers me,” she says. “I’ve been to the morgue, the medical examiner’s office, cemeteries in the middle of the night, just all kinds of places that inspire me.

Actor Woody Harrelson’s father, Charles Harrelson, and I became extraordinary pen pals when he was in a supermax (prison) in Florence, Colorado.” She also reaches out to people at the GBI, the Atlanta police department, and various homicide departments, which may inspire a new storyline.

Kim Carter advises up-and-coming writers: “I think the key is having your own place to write, surrounded by things that inspire you. Having your own space to write, where you can close it off, is truly instrumental.”

(Interview/image courtesy of writer Jennifer Dziedzic of
of the AJC & Newnan-Cowets Magazine)

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ABOUT THE NOVELIST KIM CARTER

Novelist Kim Carter is a multi-award-winning author and critically acclaimed writer of gripping suspense, chilling thrillers, and haunting historical mysteries.

Ms. Carter is widely recognized for her vibrant characters in her ‘A Clara and Iris Mystery’ series, which features two overly curious widows who become private investigators. These humorous women are inspired by Kim’s mother and her mother’s best friend. The series now includes books one through four. Book two of this series, Murder Among The Tombstones, was chosen as a Finalist for the 2018 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award and a recipient of the 2017 TCK Publishers’ Readers’ Choice Award.

Her Mysteries and literary works include Sweet Dreams, Baby Belle, When Dawn Never Comes, Deadly Odds (chosen Editor’s Pick in Books Shelf Magazine in 2022), No Second Chances, ‘And The Forecast Called For Rain,’ and ‘Dark Secrets of the Bayou, ‘The Root Of All Evil, in 2024, and her newest ‘A Clara and Iris’ mystery’ Time Did Not Forget’ in Nov. 2025.

“Dark Secrets of The Bayou” has been awarded a Reader’s Favorite Editorial 5-Star Review, also chosen #1 Finalist for Best Historical Mystery from Reader’s Favorite 2021 book awards, and was awarded a 2021 Killer Nashville Finalist for The Silver Falchion Awards. In 2022, “Bayou” was chosen by The Author Shout book awards as a ‘Recommended Read.’

Kim’s novels can be purchased online at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B019QSNFI0/allbooks
Barnes and Noble, BAM, and IndieBound.

Kim’s writing career started after she suffered an illness that made her housebound for a couple of years. An avid reader of mystery novels herself, she embarked on writing to fill her time. Kim’s health struggles and successes have been chronicled on Lifetime Television in early 2000, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Women’s Day Magazine, and Guidepost.

Now, with nine thrilling mystery titles to her credit, Kim worked in many different capacities in county government. Still, her job as a correctional officer ultimately offered her opportunities to talk and interact with a diverse group of people. Her experience runs the gamut from inspiring success stories to tragic endings as she writes within her mysteries.

Kim began networking and connected with numerous homicide detectives, medical examiners, and prison officials. Her research has taken her to many places, including morgues, death row, and the occasional midnight visit to cemeteries to gain material for her novels. She is a Saint Leo University college graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology.

When she is not writing, she enjoys gardening, is an avid reader, and is a proud mother of four beautiful grown children; she resides and shares her time in Biloxi and Atlanta.