Born in a small town in Kansas and taken at six months to San Diego, I lived most of my childhood on the move, following my career Navy father around, except for three pivotal years in Oklahoma where my father’s family lived. After marriage and three kids, I went back to college and received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City where I spent many years as an administrator, mostly running the UMKC Women’s Center. That job gave me many great pleasures, including serving on the planning committee and as co-convenor of one of the critical area caucuses at Women 2000: Beijing Plus Five at the United Nations.
I had always wanted to be a writer, a novelist, but life got in the way, and I wound up scribbling poetry in spare moments between childcare, work, and school. I became a poet, but my poems always had a story somewhere in them. The narrative impulse dies hard.
Health problems eventually forced me out of the university and opened the door to writing full-time. I published two books of poetry, had two poems read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac, and won some awards. I also published a cookbook. I took a deep breath and jumped into the fiction pond. My novel, Every Last Secret, won the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition, was a Barnes & Noble Mystery Pick, and was selected by Las Comadres National Latino Book Club.
When I started writing this series, I wanted to explore Skeet Bannion’s character. She, like so many of us, is a good person still tangled up in family issues from her childhood. Skeet stars in my second novel, Every Broken Trust (St. Martin's/Minotaur, May 7, 2013), as well. And now I'm working on the third Skeet Bannion novel. I want to spend more time with her and with my invented town of Brewster, Missouri, which partakes of so many Kansas and Missouri small towns I’ve known. I love mysteries set in small communities where the detective is a real part of the whole community. With Skeet, I have that—and yet, she’s not quite completely a part of it since she always holds a bit of herself back. I don’t know if Skeet will ever get over that. I’ll have to write it to see.
I enjoy knitting lace shawls, spinning alpaca and wool, weaving tapestries, and gardening with herbs and native plants when I’m not writing, always my first love. I am president of the Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime,a founding board member of The Writers Place and the Latino Writers Collective, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, Kansas City Cherokee Community, and International Thriller Writers. I live in Kansas City, Missouri, with my husband Ben, a Plott hound named Dyson, Mrs. Miniver, a domineering cat, and about a million books.
Awards/Residencies
Winner, St. Martin’s/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel CompetitionInspiration Award KCArtsFund
Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence
Ragdale Fellow
Midwest Voices and Visions Award
Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award for Excellence in Writing
Macondo Fellow
Barbara Storck Prize in Creative Writing
Crystal Field Creative Writing Fellowship
Gary Barger Memorial Fiction Scholarship
Media Bio
Linda Rodriguez’s novel, Every Last Secret (St. Martin's/Minotaur, 2012), won the 2011 St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition, and her second Skeet Bannion novel, Every Broken Trust, will be published by St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur May 7, 2013. She has published two books of poetry, Heart’s Migration (Tia Chucha Press, 2009), winner of the 2010 Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence, and Skin Hunger (Potpourri Publications, 1995, Scapegoat Press, 2007). She received the 2010 Inspiration Award from the KC Arts Fund, the 2009 Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award from the Macondo Foundation, and the 2009 Midwest Voices and Visions Award from the Alliance of Artists Communities and the Joyce Foundation and has been both a Ragdale Fellow and a Macondo Fellow. She is the president of the Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, a founding board member of The Writers Place and the Latino Writers Collective, and a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, Kansas City Cherokee Community, and International Thriller Writers, publishing poetry and fiction in numerous journals and anthologies. Her poems have been broadcast on The Writers Almanac with Garrison Keillor (NPR) and New Letters on the Air (NPR). She is currently working on a third mystery novel with Skeet Bannion, and a book of poetry based on teachings from her Cherokee grandmother.
Agent
Ellen GeigerVice President & Senior Agent
Frances Goldin Literary Agency, Inc.
57 E. 11th St. Suite 5B
New York, NY 10003
Tel. 212-777-0047
eg@goldinlit.com
www.goldinlit.com
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