Putting words together has been
Linda's lifelong
passion; she's constantly writing: novels, short stories, newspaper
columns, magazine articles, insurance continuing education seminars and
texts, career
development workshops, and training manuals. Linda also hosts the
Author
Exchange Blog, a forum for published writers and other professionals in
the publishing industry.
Linda is a member of the
following writer's organizations: Mystery Writers of America, Romance
Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, EPIC, Rocky Mountain Chapter/MWA,
Montana Chapter/RWA. She served as president of RWA's New
England Chapter from 1990-1994.
Linda has written several
mystery and romance novels and
Second Time Around,
a mystery, was released by ePress-Online
in January 2009. It was nominated for a 2010 EPIC Award as the best
Mystery/Suspense novel of the year; the winner of that award will be
announced at EPIC's annual conference on March 7, 2010 in New Orleans, LA.
Linda served as a staff writer for
Three Rivers Lifestyle, a
quarterly magazine that shared the best of western Montana. Some of
her photos
were also published in the magazine and she continues to collaborate
with the magazine's owner and editor, David Baumstark, on other projects.
Linda also wrote a monthly column,
Business Sense,
in
The Weekender,
a community entertainment magazine in suburban Orlando, Florida. Her
column appeared from the publication's debut in July 2002 until it ceased
publication in November 2009.
Linda's career has always involved the
insurance industry, where a huge body of her work has been published in
various formats. The majority of her projects were
written for Faulkner Education Services, for whom
she continues to develop and write
insurance continuing education and pre-licensing texts, seminars, workbooks,
and outlines. Linda also develops and writes professional career
development workshops, which have been presented at many western Montana
business organizations and educational facilities, including the Missoula
and Butte campuses of the University of Montana. Faulkner Education
Services also partners with a number of insurance organizations and
associations to present her work, including The National Alliance for
Insurance Education and Research, the Montana Insurance Education
Foundation, and the Professional Insurance Agents Western Alliance.
Linda is a regular contributor to
Rough Notes,
a national insurance trade magazine, and contracts to national insurance
continuing education organizations for the writing of online insurance
continuing education texts.
Although Linda was born in
New York City, she moved to southeastern Massachusetts when she was a child and
considers herself a native New Englander. Until, of
course, she passes all tests and becomes a native Montanan. She and
her husband passed
the wildfire test during August of 2007, when they were evacuated from
their home for
ten days. The Black Cat Fire burned one-half mile from their
house, which is nearly two miles off the highway up an unpaved mountain
road. (See the Photos page for an up-close look of the scenery when
driving down the highway away from her home that summer.) The final test
to pass for native Montanan status, as far as Linda is concerned, is making
it through a typical western Montana winter. Since her neighbors
report they haven't had one of those in ten years, she's figuring it'll
happen sooner rather than later! (FYI, the true, died-in-the wool,
native Montanans will never consider her one of their own--but she figures
everyone has a right to her own reality.)
Linda's three grown children, two granddaughters, father,
and sister all live in either Rhode Island or Massachusetts. Missing
them is the only downside of living in Montana. In addition to her
husband Stephen, she has plenty of companions when loneliness strikes:
two dogs, two cats, and Stephen's two cockatoos.