His parents were lawyer K. Odel Hiaasen and Patricia Moran Hiaasen. He has two sisters, Judith and Barbara, and a brother, Rob. Hiaasen forged his ecological consciousness as a child with mischief that included stealing survey markers for new developments in his community. In her introduction to
Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen (1999) Diane Stevenson writes that Hiaasen learned to read at age four, using
Miami Herald sports stories and Florida maps as primers. After receiving his first typewriter in 1960, he taught himself to type and ultimately produced a neighborhood sports page. He began to form his satirical voice while attending Plantation High School, publishing an underground newsletter called
More Trash that examined the current teen culture and depicted teachers and administration in a comical light.
Hiaasen started college in 1970 at Emory University, where, according to Stevenson, "he ghostwrote a doctor's memoirs . . . married his high school sweetheart [registered nurse and attorney Constance Lyford], and became a father" in the space of two years. (He and Lyford, who divorced in 1996, have a son, Scott.) He then attended the University of Florida, graduated with a degree in journalism in 1974, and began writing for Cocoa Today (now Florida Today).
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