Marion Moore Hill was born in Oklahoma and grew up primarily in Illinois and Kansas, changing schools often as the family followed her father's oil-field career.  She holds the A.A. degree from El Dorado (Kansas) Junior College (now Butler County Community College),  the B.S. from Oklahoma Baptist University and the M.A. from Stanford  University.  Hill has worked as newspaper reporter, college English and journalism teacher, legal secretary, and ad copywriter.  While teaching at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee, she married Elbert Hill, who recently retired from 40 years of college teaching, most of those spent teaching chidren's literature and philosophy at  Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma, where she has also taught.  Their interest in, and friendship with,  international students at SOSU led to their opening a small ethnic/gourmet grocery in Durant, which they ran for eight years.

Hill likes animals and for years owned a big black dog named Aragorn, model for the title character in "Bear With Me," one of a collection of short stories in Almostly Murder...With Pets.  The anthology,  published by Padlock Mystery Press, features tales by nine Oklahoma mystery authors who call themselves the Cozy Crime Writers, and each story in the book includes one or more animal  characters.  Hill's first published novel, Bookmarked for Murder, also contains a dog character (the heroine's pet Rip).  Two cats currently allow Hill to feed and care for them.

"Some of my readers ask if I'm Marion the librarian," she says.  "I'm not a librarian myself, but I hang out in libraries a lot.  Much of what I do revolves around reading."  She is a tutor for Durant Literacy Council, and her inspirational article, "From a Literacy Tutor," appears in Ways Women Serve the Lord, compiled by Dolores White Kiser.  Hill is a discussion leader for Book Talk, a reading group sponsored by Friends of the Robert L. Williams Public Library in Durant.  She has served as FOL's book-fair chairman and for several years read stories weekly to residents of Caddo Nursing Home in Caddo, OKlahoma.

She also enjoys cooking--"especially making (and eating) rich desserts."  She contributed a recipe for chocolate souffle, much like the one Juanita Wills makes in Bookmarked for Murder, to A Second Helping of Murder, a cookbook featuring recipes contributed by various mystery authors and published by Poisoned Pen Press.  The cookbook was a finalist for the 2004 Agatha Award in non-fiction.

Hill also is interested in history, particularly the American Revolutionary period.  She has begun a second series, of contemporary amateur-sleuth mysteries revolving around important figures from that time, called the Deadly Past Mysteries.  The series debuted in April 2006 with Deadly Will, in which Millie Kirchner, a young single mother and history buff from Richardson, TX (just north of Dallas) learns she's an heir under an odd will based on the actual legacy Benjamin Franklin made to the cities of Philadelphia and Boston.  Franklin left money drawing interest for 200 years after his death, and at the end of that time (in 1990) the cities received millions of dollars each from Franklin's bequest.  In Will, a fictitious acquaintance of Franklin named Nathan Henry copies Ben's idea but makes changes:  Instead of his accumulated millions going to cities, Henry decrees that his own descendants living two centuries following his death should divide the money.  He also leaves personal items (called "keepsakes" in his will) to be distributed by lottery to these heirs.  When his descendants meet at his Philadelphia mansion to hold the lottery, some die under mysterious circumstances, and it appears one heir is killing others to reduce the number who'll share Henry's money.  Millie must solve the mystery, because she fears she may be next.

Hill also likes traveling, especially to sites of historical significance.  Trips to Philadelphia are reflected in Deadly Will, and she'll travel in October 2006 to Lynchburg, VA, to do research at Thomas Jefferson's retreat,  Poplar Forest, for the first sequel to Will, called Deadly Design.

Hill is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc., and Red River Writers.  Her novels and short stories have won prizes from ByLine Magazine, Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc., Greater Dallas Writers' Association, Panhandle Professional Writers and Johnson County Creative Writers.  Her first short story "Mum's and Pansy's Greenhouse" was published in the premier edition of Whispering Willow Mystery Magazine as its Dagger Award winner in 1997.  Another short story, "Salty Ma's Diner," appears in the 2004 Red Dirt Anthology, published by Red Dirt Book Festival.

Hill has completed the first sequel to Bookmarked for Murder, called Death Books a Return, and is working on the first sequel to Will.

To direct a question or comment to the author, e-mail marion@marionmoorehill.com or write P. O. Box 5172, Durant, Oklahoma 74702.

Site last updated 7/7/08.

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