The Life of John Grisham
John Grisham wrote two books while working every day as a Mississippi lawyer. Soon, he became one of the best-selling authors of all time.
Before he was one of the bestselling authors of all time John Grisham was a Mississippi lawyer
with an idea. Grisham’s second novel, The Firm, along with his later legal thrillers, The Pelican Brief and The Runaway Jury, turned him into the number one author of the 1990s.
“You can find an hour a day. For me it was waking up earlier in the morning — very early in the morning and going to my office earlier to write a page or two every day. And I was disciplined enough to do it and that’s how the first two books got written. I had never written anything before, did not know how to write, I’d never studied writing, did not dream of being a writer when I was a student, but I had what I thought was a great idea for a courtroom drama — a big trial set in a small town in Mississippi.”
Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer to inspire and change the world: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Grisham represented the seventh district, which included DeSoto County. By his second term in the Mississippi state legislature, he was the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee and a member of several other committees.
When he’s not writing law justice books for entertainment, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.
“I told my wife that, you know — I said “I’m going to write one more book. Try to. And if the second book doesn’t work, if it flops too, then forget this hobby. Forget writing. I’ll just — I’ll be a lawyer. I’m still a lawyer.”
Brut.
Before he was one of the bestselling authors of all time John Grisham was a Mississippi lawyer
with an idea. Grisham’s second novel, The Firm, along with his later legal thrillers, The Pelican Brief and The Runaway Jury, turned him into the number one author of the 1990s.
“You can find an hour a day. For me it was waking up earlier in the morning — very early in the morning and going to my office earlier to write a page or two every day. And I was disciplined enough to do it and that’s how the first two books got written. I had never written anything before, did not know how to write, I’d never studied writing, did not dream of being a writer when I was a student, but I had what I thought was a great idea for a courtroom drama — a big trial set in a small town in Mississippi.”
Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer to inspire and change the world: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Grisham represented the seventh district, which included DeSoto County. By his second term in the Mississippi state legislature, he was the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee and a member of several other committees.
When he’s not writing law justice books for entertainment, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.
“I told my wife that, you know — I said “I’m going to write one more book. Try to. And if the second book doesn’t work, if it flops too, then forget this hobby. Forget writing. I’ll just — I’ll be a lawyer. I’m still a lawyer.”
Brut.