Linda K Sienkiewicz

Writing life, line by line

My Guest Essay on Midstory about reclaiming who you are!

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. Learned self-doubt often wears the costume of imposter syndrome, but it isn't always a failure of confidence. Sometimes it's the legacy of subtle criticism and years of absorbing other people's fears about what we should or shouldn't do. I’m thrilled to have my essay on reclaiming yourself in midlife on Midstory Magazine! This essay explores how the beliefs we absorb in childhood and … [Read more...]

The Books That Taught Me How to Write a Character Like Serenity

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Reading my Way into Love and Other Incurable Ailments: Stories about neurodivergent characters have fascinated me for years, long before Love and Other Incurable Ailments was even a glimmer of an idea. Maybe because writers don’t always get these characters right, I notice when they do. I pay attention to the way an anxious mind is portrayed, to the contradictions and quirks, to the things … [Read more...]

Apparently, I’m manifesting

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I want to thank Soph Newman | The Ex Good Girl, the marvelous diva behind The Good Girls Guide to Manifestation on Substack, who set me on this path. A childhood of manifesting Before I tell you what I’m currently manifesting, you should probably know that I've been doing this since childhood, only I didn’t know it. As a girl, I bargained with the universe: if I could walk a whole block … [Read more...]

Oversharing for Fun and Connection: Weird Facts Edition

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Weird facts I probably shouldn't share When my mother took me to the library, I’d sneak off to the poetry section to look for sexual metaphors in Victorian verse. The first time I read a poem in public, my mouth was so dry that my lips stuck to my teeth, and my hand shook so violently that I couldn’t bring a glass of water to my lips to take a drink. I met my husband after last call in … [Read more...]

On Being Contrary in PT: No way am I doing that

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I once asked my husband if he thought I was contrary. “What, are you kidding?” he said. When I think about it, my mother could be quite contrary, too. She was generous and loving, but she did not like being told what to do. I remember when she was in her nineties and living in assisted living. She ended up in the hospital with compression fractures of the spine and came home with a … [Read more...]