Patricia McLinn is the author of 21 Silhouette Special Editions. She has promised her mother that she would tell her readers that the families and childhoods and traumas of her characters are not self-portraits. She had a great childhood and an even better family.
Patricia attended Northwestern University, receiving a BA in English Composition in three years, and then adding a Masters in Journalism in her fourth year. (She says, If you’re wondering why the masters, check out the want ads and see exactly how many jobs ask for someone with a degree in English Composition.)
She became a sports writer, with its great training in dialogue, character, motivation, conflict, goals. After being a sports writer for the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star and assistant sports editor at the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, she moved to the Washington Post. But it was because of the dried wallpaper paste that she really started writing.
“I’d bought a house with 50 years of wallpaper-paint-wallpaper-paint-wallpaper-paint layers. Sometimes four, five layers of wallpaper, always topped with paint. On every wall surface in the entire house. The only way to get it off was to chip at it with a wide-bladed putty knife. Chip after chip after chip.
“Under the influence of the chipping and the desiccated wallpaper paste, I started having a story idea. I’d type until I didn’t know what to say next, and then I’d chip. Pretty soon I’d have more ideas and I’d go back to typing. I thought it would be a short story, but it kept growing. There was something very inspiring about that dried wallpaper paste.”
After serving as an assignment editor and copy chief for the Post’s sports department, Patricia went part-time to write novels. Several years ago, she switched to editing for the Post’s news service.
And even without the wallpaper dust in her house, the story ideas keep coming. Belgrave House will be re-issuing her early Silhouette Special Editions as ebooks. Look for them throughout 2005.
For more information on Patricia, please visit her website.
