Hello!
I’m Linda Shenton Matchett, and I’m the guest blogger today. My father worked for IBM while I was growing up. Officially, the company’s name is International Business Machines, but employees’ families referred to it as I’ve Been Moved. I attended two elementary schools, one middle school, and three high schools. For the last move, we ended up in Maryland where I met my husband-to-be at our church. As challenging as it was to relocate so often, I learned how to make friends quickly.
One of my favorite things to do as a teen was to stay up late on Friday nights and watch old movies (mostly from the 30s and 40s) with my dad. I quickly became a fan of William Powell, Jimmy Stewart, and Ronald Colman. I wanted to be as clever as Myrna Loy and as graceful as Audrey Hepburn. Perhaps the exposure to all those movies is planted the seed for my love of writing stories set during WWII. Another time period I enjoy reading and writing about is the Civil War era, and I was able to visit many historic sites while I lived in Northern Virginia.
I wrote stories as a child, but after I entered high school studies and other activities took the place of writing. I didn’t return to it until we moved to New Hampshire to operate a bed & breakfast. I stumbled into the opportunity to do some freelance magazine work, but my first love has always been fiction, so in 2007 I took the plunge and wrote “the great American novel” which turned out to be not so great.
After attending conferences, reading lots of books about writing, and finding a wonderful critique group, my skills improved, and my first book, a novella called Love’s Harvest, was published in 2016. A modern retelling of the biblical story of Ruth, the book is set during WWII. My most recent release, Dinah’s Dilemma is my 17th book, with more on the way. You can visit my website to see all my books.
When I’m not working my day job as a dining and catering manager for a boarding school or writing a new story, I volunteer as an archivist and docent at the Wright Museum of WWII. This is me as Rosie the Riveter.
I’d love to hear your questions.
I love this new feature! Welcome to the blog and I've enjoyed your posts.
ReplyDeleteThanks Connie. I appreciate your support and encouragement, and I know the other authors do to! Blessings.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I agree with you about World War II. We will never know all the sacrifices they made. I especially love anything about the British and the way such a tiny island held off you-know-who for so long. They were all truly the Greatest Generation.
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