Jetta Carleton  Jetta Carleton (1913–1999) was an American novelist. Carleton was born on a farm in Nevada, Missouri, the daughter of P. A. Carleton, the local superintendent of schools. She had two sisters, Truma and Yana; both were schoolteachers, and over twenty years older than she. The house in which they lived lacked indoor plumbing when she was born. Carleton attended Cottey College in Nevada, from which she graduated in 1933. She went on to study English and take a master's degree at the University of Missouri. from which she graduated in 1939. While there, she danced and acted in student productions, and in 1936 she was named the school's Poet of the Year. Upon graduation from the university, Carleton moved to Joplin, where she taught at Joplin Junior College. After a short time there she moved again, to Kansas City, where she took a job at WHB writing advertising copy; eventually she was given her own program on the station about local events. While living there she met Jene Lyon, marrying him in 1943. They soon moved to New York City, where Carleton found work as an advertising copywriter, among a variety of other odd jobs. The couple purchased a house in Hoboken, New Jersey, but returned to Nevada for a visit for two weeks every summer. It was these visits which provided the inspiration for the novel "The Moonflower Vine", much of which is based on stories from Carleton's family and other residents of the town. "The Moonflower Vine" was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1962, and proved to be a sensation. It was edited by Robert Gottlieb, who said of it, "Of the hundreds upon hundreds of novels I've edited, this is literally the only one I've reread several times since its publication." The novel spent four months on the "New York Times" bestseller list; it was selected for promotion by two major book clubs, appeared as a "Reader's Digest Condensed Book", and was published in eight other countries. Due to its success Cottey presented Carleton with its Distinguished Alumna Award in 1964 for her work. Nevertheless, it remained the only novel which she published during her lifetime. Carleton and her husband moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970, and opened a publishing house, The Lightning Tree, with the money earned from her novel. Never profitable, it put out poetry, cookbooks, and works on regional history, and kept her too busy to write.