Carla Damron is a social worker, advocate and author whose last novel, The Stone Necklace (about grief and addiction) won the 2017 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award for Best Novel and was selected the One Community Read for Columbia SC. Damron is also the author of the Caleb Knowles mystery novels and has published numerous short stories, essays, and op-eds.

Damron holds an MSW and an MFA. Her careers of social worker and writer are intricately intertwined; all of her novels explore social issues like addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. Damron works part-time with Communities in Schools and volunteers with the League of Women Voters, Sisters in Crime- Palmetto Chapter (President), and Mutual Aid Midlands.

In her new novel, The Orchid Tattoo, Damron uses crime fiction to delve into the complex topic of human trafficking, a horrific crime affecting thousands of victims around the world—and in her native South Carolina. She hopes the novel will both entertain and educate her readers.

Damron is a South Carolina native. Born in Sumter, she currently lives  outside of Columbia with her husband, Jim Hussey, and their blended family of assorted animals.