Linda K Sienkiewicz

Writing life, line by line

Writing eccentric characters in fiction

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Many thanks to Barbara Bos for publishing this essay. Women Writers, Women’s Books does a wonderful job helping promote authors and their books. You can be a disaster and still get invited to the fish fry! As a reader, I’ve always been drawn to stories where healing doesn’t  arrive as an epiphany or a makeover montage. As a writer, I wasn’t interested in giving Serenity a wise mentor … [Read more...]

The Power of One Well-Placed “F*ck”: restraining profanity for character, tone, and impact in fiction

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Going nearly F-free The only “f*ck” in my second novel doesn’t appear until page 180. A character shouts it in anger, punctuating a pivotal moment. The same character, a cantankerous retiree, delivers the only “shit” in the book so casually that it startles. My aim was to give those two scenes power. So for me, the challenge in writing this story wasn’t deciding whether or not to include … [Read more...]

Drunken sailors, sea shanties, and what does “Weigh heigh and up she rises” mean anyway?

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A Writer's Curiosity: When I was working on edits for Love and Other Incurable Ailments, I had to research the song, “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor.” First, I had to be certain the lyrics were in public domain. But then I began to wonder what this even means: Weigh Heigh and up she rises,Weigh Heigh and up she rises,Weigh Heigh and up she rises,Early in the morning. I’m glad I … [Read more...]

From Southern Lit to Midwest Values: Author Karen Garloch on telling the stories we overlook

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Karen Garloch asks: Why is there such a rich mystique surrounding Southern literature, but we rarely talk about Midwestern literature in the same way? After I met Karen at the Regal House Publishing conference in Chicago, I became curious about her writing. Her debut novel, Stray Voltage, captures the rhythms of rural Indiana with remarkable authenticity, exploring family, community, faith, and … [Read more...]

Blackbeard… the Polite Poet?

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Everything you thought you knew about pirates is wrong Many legends and stories still swirl over the seas about Blackbeard the Pirate, some of them erroneously furthered by the likes of People Magazine and National Geographic. In fact, they seem to be getting worse because no one bothers to fact-check these days. For example, a 2023 issue of People claimed that “Blackbeard was a real-life … [Read more...]