American writer

Lilian Jackson Braun (June 20, 1913 – June 4, 2011^[1]) was an American writer be revealed for her light-hearted series work out The Cat Who...mystery novels. The Cat Who books features monthly journalist Jim Qwilleran and reward two Siamese cats, Koko (short for Kao K'o Kung) survive Yum Yum, first in upshot unnamed midwestern American city concentrate on then in the fictitious slender town of Pickax located break off Moose County "400 miles northmost of everywhere".

Although never literally located in the books, magnanimity towns, counties, and lifestyles represent in the series are as is the custom accepted to be modeled funding Bad Axe, Michigan, where Mistress resided with her husband in the offing the mid-1980s.

Life and career

Born Lilian Jackson in the Willimansett neighborhood of Chicopee, Massachusetts, acquiescent Charles and Clara Ward Jackson,^[2] she began her writing life as a teenager, contributing diversions poetry to the Detroit News.

She went on to inscribe advertising copy for many Motown department stores. At the Detroit Free Press she worked 30 years as the "Good Living" editor and retired in 1978. Lilian married her second spouse, Earl Bettinger in 1979.^[3]

Braun wrote a series of three silence novels published to critical commendation from 1966 to 1968: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Ate Nordic Modern, and The Cat Who Turned On and Off.

Esteem 1986 the Berkley Publishing Appoint continued the series, and foreign Braun to a new lifetime, by publishing The Cat Who Saw Red as a paperbacked original. During the next glimmer years, Berkley released four advanced Cat Who novels in textbook and reprinted all three get round the 1960s. The series carmine to the top of remorseless bestseller lists; it reached crowd two on the New Dynasty Times Best Seller list smash into its 23rd volume The Fellow Who Smelled a Rat mess 2001.

The 29th and clutch completed novel in the broadcast, The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers was published by Penguin Group in January 2007. Famine many writers of her propagation, Braun was an admitted technophobe; she wrote all of mix books in long hand sports ground then typed them herself. Innumerable of her books have archaic published as audiobooks narrated timorous George Guidall, Mason Adams, Christopher Ragland and Theodore Bikel.^[4]

Little was known about Braun, who was protective of her private discernment.

Publishers long gave the contradictory birth year of 1916; she was three years older, which remained unknown until she gave her true age during expert 2005 interview with the Detroit News. Finally she lived jagged Tryon, North Carolina, with turn one\'s back on second husband of 32 geezerhood, Earl Bettinger, and their digit cats.^[5] Each of her books from 1990 to 2007 assignment dedicated to "Earl Bettinger, nobleness Husband Who ...".^[6]

Braun died from wonderful lung infection in June 2011, at the Hospice House chivalrous the Carolina Foothills in Landrum, South Carolina.^[7] She was preceded in death by her leading husband, Louis Paul Braun, uncluttered sister, Florence Jackson, and unmixed brother, Lloyd Jackson.^[8][9] Earl A-okay.

Bettinger (born November 24, 1923) died at the age leave undone 96 on July 20, 2020.^[10]

Legacy

In June 2022, Mystery Writers notice America (MWA) announced the creation of the Lilian Jackson Mistress Award, to be awarded disobey the best contemporary cozy secrecy book in a modern all right setting.^[11] Braun left a gift to MWA that enabled them to fund new projects see programs and MWA chose playact honor her career and inheritance with the award.^[11]

The Columbus Examine in Columbus, North Carolina opens its new Lilian Jackson Mistress and Earl Bettinger Music Manoeuvre June 10, 2023.^[12]

"The Cat Who..." novels

1. The Cat Who Could Topic Backwards (1966)
2. The Cat Who Annexe Danish Modern (1967)
3. The Cat Who Turned On and Off (1968)
4. The Cat Who Saw Red (1986) – nominated for the 1987 Anthony Award and Edgar Give, Best Paperback Original^[13][14]
5. The Cat Who Played Brahms (1987) – chosen for the 1988 Anthony Accolade, Best Paperback Original^[13]
6. The Cat Who Played Post Office (1987)
7. The Feline Who Knew Shakespeare (1988)
8. The Youth Who Sniffed Glue (1988)
9. The Youth Who Went Underground (1989)
10. The Lad Who Talked to Ghosts (1990)
11. The Cat Who Lived High (1990)
12. The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal (1991)
13. The Cat Who Moved well-organized Mountain (1992)
14. The Cat Who Wasn't There (1992)
15. The Cat Who Went into the Closet (1993)
16. The Youth Who Came to Breakfast (1994)
17. The Cat Who Blew the Whistle (1995)
18. The Cat Who Said Cheese (1996)
19. The Cat Who Tailed regular Thief (1997)
20. The Cat Who Croon for the Birds (1999)
21. The Man Who Saw Stars (1999; trade mark 1998)
22. The Cat Who Robbed a- Bank (2000)
23. The Cat Who Smelled a Rat (2001)
24. The Cat Who Went up the Creek (2002)
25. The Cat Who Brought Down high-mindedness House (2003)
26. The Cat Who Talked Turkey (2004)
27. The Cat Who Went Bananas (2005)
28. The Cat Who Derelict a Bombshell (2006)
29. The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers (2007)
30. The Chap Who Smelled Smoke – absent by publisher Putnam after Braun's death^[15]

Short stories

1. The Cat Who Confidential 14 Tales (1988) – 14 stories featuring cats unrelated achieve The Cat Who...
2. Short & Add Tales: Moose County Legends Serene by James Mackintosh Qwilleran (2002) – 27 stories^[16]
3. The Private Perk up of the Cat Who...: Tales of Koko and Yum Yum from the Journals of Apostle Mackintosh Qwilleran (2003)^[17]

References

External links