Book: The Perks of Hospice: Stories of Love, Life, and Loss Website(s): http://lindamoran.org Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Marbler/ Twitter: @LindaMoran3813 Linda Moran – writing since I was 12, and then a couple of decades later started making some sense, including a memoir…. The Perks of Hospice: Stories of Love, Life, and Loss. I write about a lot of topics, which is so different from starting to write when I was 12 and given a diary. I’d read The Diary of Anne Frank, so my parents bought me what could only be called a “calendar diary.” I had no clue what to write about – I didn’t have “thoughts” worthy of going onto paper. I think I wrote a list of what I watched on television and my various heart-throbs (Kookie, a young Leslie Nielsen, Zorro, Robert Goulet…). I’m convinced one of the reasons I did well on term papers in college was because I knew my grammar, due to an amazing Latin teacher – Joan Daniels from Sterling High School in Somerdale, NJ changed my life. Years ago I wrote a thank you in a blog when I heard she had died – but I already had been by to see her and thank her for changing my life. Thanks to Google archive, I could find the blog, since it had already been permanently deleted by a well-known hosting service (25 years with the same web address, a great website, and over 1000 blogs…) It took many years to realize I truly did have something to say…in the form of romance writing. I was planning on becoming another Janet Dailey (Now it would be Nora Roberts). I have three unpublished romances, one of which had a really nice rejection letter (at least I thought so). From there I worked on education articles, including an unpublished mathematics book, “Whatever It Takes: The Journey to Mathematical Success.” It was accepted by a Tucson publisher…who was bought out by a larger Chicago press, and they “lost” my manuscript, as well as 300 pieces of original art illustrations. In retrospect it was a good thing, as I have since learned so much about teaching mathematics that the book would have been a serious flop. I did essays for a while, short writings about the joys and demands and incompetence within the education system, as well as stories about our fiber art creations. Then I had an idea for a novel about Arizona seceding from the US and becoming its own Christian republic. I started in 2013, before a previous president actually had been elected. I finished it in 2015 and shopped it around a bit. The few agents I heard from thought that even for “speculative fiction,” it was too far-fetched. Anyone reading it now would think I had written the current events of the day…but as a history major I interpreted events that did come to pass. I started writing on line in 2018 and everything changed for me. I had readers! I had commenters! I had so many things to say about the world…and then my husband went into hospice for two years, I became a widow, and I wrote about what I really know now – death and grief. I can’t imagine not writing about life in these crazy times. My interests show up in education and world affairs. Just click and go exploring.
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