“queen of suspense”, Bestselling Author of “the Notebook”, and manager of the florida Marlins speak about the importance of their catholic faith on NBC-TV SPECIAL

WASHINGTON, DC – Internationally-renowned author and “Queen of Suspense”, Mary Higgins Clark; best-selling author of “The Notebook”, Nicholas Sparks; and Jack McKeon, the manager of Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins talk about the impact of faith in their lives in a one-hour special that will be distributed to NBC-TV affiliates on Sunday, June 19.

The program, “Personally Speaking,” is hosted by Msgr. Jim Lisante and is produced by the USCCB’s Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC) as part of the “Horizons of the Spirit” interfaith religious series seen each year on many NBC stations.  A list of stations that have scheduled broadcasts will be posted on the Internet at www.personallyspeaking.org as they become available.  Viewers can also call their local NBC-TV station to ask about their plans to air the program.

Mary Higgins Clark was born and raised during the Depression in the Bronx, New York.  Even as a young girl she knew that she wanted to be a writer and her mother nurtured that dream from an early age.  After her father’s sudden death when Mary was ten, however, the family struggled to make ends meet and she was forced to put her dream on hold, working after school as a hotel switchboard operator to help her mother with the family finances.  After high school she went to secretarial school and worked for three years in an advertising agency, before embarking on a brief career as a stewardess on Pan American Airlines.  Soon after her first marriage, to Warren Clark, she rekindled her dream and started writing short stories at the kitchen table, finally selling the first one in 1956 for one hundred dollars – six years and forty rejection slips later.  The death of her husband from a heart attack in 1964 left her a young widow with five children, so she went to work writing radio scripts to support the family.  She also decided to try her hand at novels and began writing in the morning before the children woke up and whenever she had a free moment.  Her first effort, a biographical novel about the life of George Washington, found a publisher but was lost when the publisher folded.  Her second novel, “Where Are the Children?”, became an international best-seller.  Since then she has written more than twenty-seven best-selling novels and has achieved international renown as the “Queen of Suspense”.

Re-married in 1996 to former Merrill Lynch CEO John Conheeney, she is the proud mother of five (including daughter and frequent collaborator, Carol) and even prouder grandmother of six.  She is also a devout Catholic and credits her faith with seeing her through the most difficult times in her life.

“I''ve always had a deep faith.  I don’t know how people survive without it.  I think it keeps you grounded and allows you to face the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

Although Nicholas Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the better part of his childhood was spent on the move.  Because his father was still a student and trying to get into a master’s program (and later a doctoral program), by the time he was eight years old, his family had lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska, before finally settling in Fair Oaks, California.  He lived in Fair Oaks through high school, graduating as valedictorian in 1984.  He attended the University of Notre Dame on a full track scholarship and set a school record as part of a relay team as a freshman (a record which still stands).  He spent the summer after his freshman year recovering from an injury to his Achilles tendon and, on the off-hand suggestion of his mother, passed the time writing his first novel.  Although it was never published, just the accomplishment of finishing it got him thinking about a career as a writer.  He graduated with high honors from Notre Dame in 1988 with a degree in Business Finance.  The following year, he married his wife, Cathy, who he met on spring break of his senior year.  They settled in Sacramento, where he wrote his second novel, though again, it was never published.   For the next three years, he worked a variety of jobs, before starting his own small manufacturing business.  In 1990, he collaborated on a book with his idol, Olympic gold medalist Billy Mills, which was published by Feather Publishing and later picked up by Random House.  He continued to put off pursuing his writing full-time, however, until 1994, when over a period of six months he wrote “The Notebook”.  He was still selling pharmaceuticals to support his family and writing in the evenings from nine until midnight, as well as one day on the weekends.  Ten months later, Warner Books bought the rights to “The Notebook” for $1,000,000.  It spent 56 weeks on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list and another 54 weeks on the paperback best-seller list.  He followed up with “Message in a Bottle”, “A Walk to Remember”, “The Rescue”, “A Bend in the Road”, “Nights in Rodanthe”, “The Guardian”, “The Wedding”, and in 2004, his first non-fiction work, “Three Weeks with my Brother”.  All were domestic and international best sellers and were translated into more than 35 languages.  Three of them have been adapted into major motion pictures (“Message in a Bottle”, starring Kevin Costner, Paul Newman, and Robin Wright Penn”; “A Walk to Remember” and most recently, “The Notebook”). 

He works out of his home in North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and five children.  And he credits his Catholic faith with not only keeping him grounded, but also helping him through whatever challenges life throws his way.  

“One of my favorite passages from the Bible is in Corinthians: ‘The Lord will test you, but he will always give you the strength to overcome whatever test he throws at you.’  When it gets tough, that’s what I fall back on.  If it’s given to me, something in me is able to handle it.”

Like generations of kids before and after him, growing up in South Amboy, New Jersey, during the Depression, the only thing Jack McKeon ever wanted to be was a big league ballplayer.  He listened to Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees games on the radio and formed his own team in the neighborhood when he was ten.  His father started a local Boys’ Club team during World War II and he played all over New Jersey, eventually developing into a big league prospect as a catcher.  He was offered a minor league contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1948, but on the urging of his father initially passed on it to attend the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.  After promising to get a college education (he later earned a degree from Elon College in North Carolina), his father relented and he signed to play with the Greenville Pirates in the Alabama State League.  After five undistinguished years in the minors, McKeon realized that if he couldn’t make it to the big leagues as a player, then he would make it as a manager.  In 1955, he was appointed player-manager of the Fayetteville Highlanders in the Carolina League and began a steady climb up the baseball ladder.  His first job managing in the majors was with the Kansas City Royals in 1973, but he was fired after only two years.  He briefly returned to the minors as a manager, before signing on with the Oakland A’s for several years as an assistant general manager and scouting director, before managing the team for parts of both the 1977 and 1978 seasons.  He later moved on to the San Diego Padres and served as their Vice President for Baseball Operations for most of the 1980s, earning the nickname “Trader Jack” for his habit of working multi-player trades.  He returned to the bench as the manager of the Padres in 1988, but was replaced during the 1990 season.  He went to work in the front office of the Cincinnati Reds as an advisor on player personnel, before being asked to manage the team during the 1997 season.  He was name National League Manager of the Year in 1999, but was inexplicably fired the following season.  After being out of the game for two years, he was asked to manage the Florida Marlins two months into the 2003 season and led them to the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees in six games.

Born and raised a Catholic, McKeon still attends Mass every morning before heading to the ballpark and credits the intercession of the Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux, with helping him land the job with the Marlins.

“Personally Speaking” is part of the “Horizons of the Spirit” series created by the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission, of which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a member.  The host of “Personally Speaking,” Msgr. Jim Lisante, is the pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in West Hempstead, New York, and is also a published author and a regular columnist for the Long Island Catholic newspaper.

The Catholic Communication Campaign is an activity of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that develops media programming, public service announcements, and other media resources to promote Gospel values. Donations of Catholic parishioners make possible the work of the CCC.  For more information, visit their website at www.usccb.org/ccc.