Linda K. Sienkiewicz (Nerva) grew up south of Cleveland, Ohio, where she attended Cooper School of Art as a scholarship student and worked in graphics. Years later, she returned to her other creative passion, writing.
Her short stories, poetry, essays and art have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner, Clackamas Literary Review, Paterson Review, New Ohio Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Permafrost, CALYX, Rattle, The MacGuffin, and others. Her essay, “My Horrible Celebrity Crush,” appears in Idol Talk: Women Writers on the Teenage Infatuation that Changed Their Lives.
Linda’s debut novel, In the Context of Love, was a finalist for multiple awards, including the Hoffer Award and Sarton Women’s Fiction Award. Her second novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing.
Among her awards is a poetry chapbook award from Heartlands Today and a Pushcart Prize Nomination. She has four other poetry chapbooks, the most recent being Sleepwalker (Finishing Line Press). She also wrote and illustrated a children’s picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.
Linda holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine. She is a member of Detroit Working Writers, Detroit Writers’ Guild, Authors’ Guild, Poetry Society of Michigan, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She lives with her husband in southeast Michigan where they spoil their grandchildren and then send them home, and works as a volunteer for The Neighborhood House, a non-profit human services organization.
She has conducted workshops and spoken in numerous venues, including HAVEN Women’s Shelter in Pontiac, Firelands College in Ohio, Detroit Working Writers, The Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids, First UU Poetry Vespers Series in Detroit, the Writers Voice, Rochester Writers Conference, and numerous libraries. She has presented at schools including Rochester Public School, Imlay City School and Brownstown Public School. To book Linda for a reading, conference, workshop, retreat, book club appearance or as a speaker, please email her by clicking the mail icon at the top of the web page.
How to pronounce Sienkiewicz: The Polish pronunciation is shin-KEH-vich. Most English speaking people say SINK-e-wits. Sienkiewicz is her married name; Linda is 100% Finnish American, but proud to share the last name of Polish Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Henryk Sienkiewicz.