Carole Walker Carter

Starting life in a small town in Nebraska, Carole and her family frequently moved across the USA, where she met many fascinating personalities who inspired characters for her stories. With a vivid imagination, Carole expressed her love of storytelling through children's Literature, Mystery, Science Fiction, and fantasy.

Carole lives presently in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Don, her childhood sweetheart and partner, their pet dogs, several chickens, and a few fish. Carole's career involved working with children from pre-school through high school, dealing with special needs and "at-risk'" children as an Occupational Therapy Assistant and Educational Assistant. Carole Walker Carter has always told stories.

Born in a small Nebraska town, Carole spent much of her childhood moving with her family across the United States. Each new place brought new faces, new experiences, and new personalities to observe. Over time, those encounters became part of the rich reservoir of characters, emotions, and ideas that would inspire her writing.

With a vivid imagination and a natural love of story, Carole has written across a wide range of genres, including children’s literature, mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. She is drawn to stories with heart, memorable characters, and the sense that something unexpected may be waiting just beyond the next page.

Her years working with children also shaped how she sees people and tells stories. As an Occupational Therapy Assistant and Educational Assistant, Carole worked with children from preschool through high school, including children with special needs and those considered at risk. Those experiences gave her a lasting appreciation for resilience, individuality, humor, and the importance of meeting people where they are.

At the center of Carole’s life is her own story. She shares her life with her husband, Don Carter—her childhood sweetheart, longtime partner, fellow author, and creative collaborator. Their lives have been filled with books, travel, publishing, animals, outdoor adventures, and an enduring curiosity about the world around them.

Carole’s devotion to Don was especially evident during one of the most difficult chapters of their lives. From 2014 through 2024, as Don lived with metastatic prostate and bone cancer, Carole became his constant caregiver and companion. She remained by his side through treatment, uncertainty, setbacks, and recovery, offering the kind of steady support that is difficult to measure but impossible to forget. That decade deepened their partnership and became another powerful part of the life they have shared.

Fishing has also been an important part of that shared life. Carole is an accomplished angler in her own right and, according to Don, has a habit of catching the first fish—and often the biggest one.

Some of their most treasured days on the water were spent in a wooden Acorn Skiff that Don and Carole rescued and rebuilt together. Designed by renowned small-boat designer Iain Oughtred, the graceful lapstrake skiff became part restoration project, part fishing boat, and part companion to their adventures. Don crafted wooden oars for the boat, and together they spent hundreds of hours rowing and fishing the alpine lakes of Central Oregon near Bend and Sisters.

Those quiet days on clear mountain lakes, often with fly rods in hand, became part of the rhythm of their life together. For Carole, they offered the perfect combination of nature, challenge, companionship, and a little friendly competition, especially when she once again brought the first or largest fish to the boat.

Together, Carole and Don have published 13 of Carole’s Detective, mystery, and young adult stories, Don’s Riverbound Waters fly-fishing books, a business book, and their best friend Tom Tutt’s biography. All through Walker Carter Publishing, blending their different interests and experiences into a shared creative life.

Today, Carole lives in Northern California, where she continues to write and develop new stories inspired by a lifetime of imagination, relationships, travel, family, perseverance, fishing, and the fascinating people she has met along the way.

For Carole, storytelling has never been simply about inventing characters and places. It is about recognizing the extraordinary possibilities hidden inside ordinary lives—and giving those possibilities a place to live on the page.