Charlie Hudson

About Charlie Hudson “Here’s an author people don’t know, but should,” is the lead in a USA Today article with praise for Charlie Hudson. Charlotte "Charlie" Hudson, born in Pine Bluff, Ark., and raised in Louisiana, is a 22-year career military veteran and wife, freelance writer and author. Among more than a dozen novels, her two scuba-themed mystery series feature strong female leads as Police Detective Bev Henderson tackles cases in the fictional town of Verde Key. In a second series, it’s Chris Green as an underwater investigator who can hold her own in martial arts and is comfortable with a 9 mm pistol when needed. On a different note, Hudson’s quilting-theme cozy series celebrates the strength of female friendship wrapped in small town closeness. Other stand-alone novels take readers from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to a remote country in Africa. On the non-fiction side, Hudson shares tips about how to juggle travel and parenting based on her years in the military. She also deals with emotional, yet important aspects of aging in her book, “Your Room at the End: Thoughts About Aging We’d Rather Avoid.” Although she longed to be a writer from an early age, she followed a different path initially. After graduating college in 1974, she entered the Army through a special program of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) - two years before women were allowed to be commissioned through Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs. As an “inadvertent pioneer” Hudson was the first female officer assigned in the history of the 19th Maintenance Battalion in Giessen, Germany; the first female selected to command a maintenance company at Ft. Campbell, Ky.; the first female ROTC instructor at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas; the first female to be designated as the executive officer to the commanding general at the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD, the first female to command the Leghorn Depot in Livorno, Italy and the first female to head the Materiel Management Center of the 25th Infantry Division (L) at Schofield Barracks, HI. During her military career Hudson was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and to Haiti in support of Operation Uphold Democracy. She retired from the Army in 1995 as a lieutenant colonel. She and her husband, Hugh Hudson, a retired Colonel, ultimately settled in South Florida where they enjoy their love of scuba diving. Hudson has a masters of science in organizational development from East Texas State University and is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pa. She is a charter member of both the National Women's Museum of Art and the Women in the Military Service of America Foundation.