Author Bio:
I was born and raised in San Diego, California and earned a BA in English from San Diego State University and an MLS from UCLA. I began my career as a reference and collection development librarian in the Art and Music Section of the San Diego Public Library and then transferred to the Literature and Languages Section, where I had the pleasure of managing the Central Library’s Fiction collection and initiating fiction order lists for the entire library system. Although I also enjoy reading biography, memoir, and history, fiction remains my first love. In addition to the three R’s—reading, writing, and research—I enjoy Scrabble, movies, and travel.
My earliest ambition was to be a “book maker” and I wrote my first story, “Judy and the Fairies,” with a plot stolen from a comic book, at the age of six. I broke into print in college with a story in the San Diego State University literary journal, The Phoenix, but most of my magazine publications came after I left the library to spend more time on my writing
My stories have been published in Eclectica, The Binnacle, The Nassau Review, Orbis, Thema Literary Journal, Verandah Literary & Art Journal, Short Story America, San Diego Writers’ Monthly, The Storyteller Anthology, I-70 Review, 34th Parallel, and the anthologies Short Story America, Vol. 2 and The Captive and the Dead. Four stories, including two as yet unpublished, received honorable mention in the Short Story America Prize for Short Fiction contests. The Wild Rose Press published Seventeen Days in 2018 and will publish The Rebound Effect in July 2019
What inspires you to write?
It varies. Sometimes when I’m watching a TV show or movie and expect or want a character to say something and they don’t, I need to create a character who will. My own characters sometimes refuse to say a line and I have to find someone else to give it to. A scene originally imagined and rejected for Seventeen Days turned out to belong in The Rebound Effect. A scene of the Winchester Brothers bickering in Supernatural somehow sparked a romance idea.
Tell us about your writing process.
I rarely outline, and when I do it’s usually after I’ve written much of the story and need to keep the chronology straight. I may (or may not) have a general idea of where the story is going, but the characters may surprise me. Once a major plot twist fell on me like a ton of bricks while I was waiting for a bus and changed the direction of the story.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
My characters talk to me and I talk to them, but they don’t listen and refuse to take orders
Who are your favorite authors?
I love Gillian Flynn and Sheri Joseph and wish they wrote more. I like memoirists like Jeannette Walls and Jennifer Storm, and I recently discovered Roxane Gay. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s diaries and letters felt like letters written to me by a friend. Joyce Carol Oates is too prolific to keep up with, but I read all of her books up to a point and a few of her more recent ones.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Self-publishing was too daunting for me, and if readers don’t like the book, the publisher can share the blame! (And of course the credit if they do.)
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
It may change in ways we can’t imagine now, but it will always be with us. I prefer print books and I’m gratified to see that many younger people do too.
What genres do you write?
Romance, romantic suspense, mystery, literary fiction. I write what I write and worry later about the categories they might fit into.
What formats are your books in?
eBook, Print
Website(s)
Linda Griffin Home Page Link
Follow Linda Griffin On Amazon
Author’s Social Media Links
Goodreads
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All information is provided by the author and is presented as it was submitted so you the reader get to hear the author’s own “voice” in their interview.
