Linda Howard

A little bIt ABout Me

I’m never certain what to say in a biography. Should it be a list of accomplishments? If so, what should those accomplishments be? My educational credentials? I was salutatorian of my high school graduation class, but I dropped out of college in my freshman year because other things, such as eating, were more important. I still think that’s a good decision. I worked at a trucking company for seventeen years, where I learned a lot about human behavior. Working there was a good decision, too. I wrote for myself because I enjoyed it, then one day I decided to see if I was good enough to be published. I was; that too was a good decision. Since then I’ve written around sixty books that have been published. I don’t know the exact number, because that isn’t important. 

I’ve been married (to the same man!) for forty-two years. I love my family and friends, my dogs, and college football, which unfortunately has what seems like the shortest season of all sports. We live in beautiful northeast Alabama, with mountains and rivers and (also unfortunately) cows. I’m not a fan of cows. They’re mean, devious, and psychic. They know when I’m here alone, and that’s when they escape. We also have some llamas; they’re neither mean, devious, nor psychic, but they know a good thing when they see it and they always escape when the cows do. They’re faster than the cows, which isn’t a good thing.

I’ve been to Canada and Europe, I’ve been zip-lining, I’ve been on cruises, and I’ve stood on the lip of an active volcano. I’ve held newborn babies. Life is good.

That’s pretty much it about me, I guess. Oh – I also cook. I’m more adventurous than good, but I do make a great southern biscuit.

Why I Write

There is no sane reason why anyone would choose to write fiction for a living, yet some people feel compelled to do so. I’m one of those people. I can’t remember when plots and characters didn’t live in my head, when I didn’t tell stories to myself. I do remember when I was nine, had read all the books in my classroom library (and they wouldn’t let me raid the other classrooms), and was about to die from being bookless. There was only one solution, and that was to write my own. So I did. And I’ve never stopped writing my own. Some people look at that as remarkable, but heck, I know a lot of writers like that. Artists have the color gene, musicians have the music gene, and writers have the word gene.

Because all these strange people live in my head and visit foreign places, get into fantastic adventures, face deadly situations and win, because they love intensely and do what’s right and live with courage, my own life has been enriched.

I suppose that’s not a bad reason for why I write.