BiographyJohn Grisham was born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He grew up in a family of five children. As a young man he moved around a lot because his father was a construction worker. They lived in many different places, for example in Crenshaw, Mississippi. The Grisham family eventually settled in Southaven, a town outside Memphis, when he was twelve years old and then began studying at Southaven High School. During his school years he was an athlete and wanted to play football or baseball professionally. These interests drove him to study at Northwest Mississippi Junior College in 1973. At Northwest he played baseball for a year and didn't really care about his grades, he just wanted to play baseball. Grisham transferred to Delta State University after a year at Northwest to improve his baseball skills. At Delta State University he discovered that he wasn't actually destined to become a baseball player and so he decided to focus on his studies, something he had never done before. So he transferred once again, this time to Mississippi State University (1975). John Grisham really liked the University. Since he could no longer become a professional baseball player, he now planned to become a tax lawyer. Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977. After studying at Mississippi State University he attended law school at the University of Mississippi, where he graduated in 1981. The same year he graduated from law school he married Renee Jones. John Grisham was now a lawyer and found himself a practice in Southaven where he practiced criminal and civil law. During this period he was also politically engaged and in 1983 he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. During his time at Mississippi State University he had begun writing two books, neither of which were ever finished. In 1984 he began writing a third. This time he finished it. The book's original title was Deathknell, but the publisher didn't like it so he changed it to A Time to Kill. In April 1987 they called three agents and the next year, in 1988, the book was sold to Wynwood Press. A year later it was published and 5,000 copies were printed. In these years he was writing his second book, The Enterprise, which was finished in 1988.