She
had a wonderful message for students. She explained her journey as a
writer. As a child, she loved getting positive comments about her
writing and even won an award in elementary school. That felt great!
However, later, a peer called her word choice weird. After that, she
stuck to writing only nonfiction, including writing for her school
newspaper. 
As
an adult, she worked in a bookstore and used some of her writing
talents to work in marketing. Being surrounded by authors during author
events and running writing workshops sparked a desire to begin writing
again. Still held back by fear, she began writing picture books in
secret. Eventually, Mouse was Mad was published in 2009, followed by her middle grade books, including A Crooked Kind of Perfect.
She described getting great reviews, which made her feel good, although
many mentioned her books how wonderful her character development was
but that the books did not have much plot. She defined herself by these
reviews, accepting that that was who she was as a writer - she was a
writer who wrote more introspective, thoughtful books focused on
characters. When her son asked her to write a book with "HAM" - humor,
adventure, and mystery, she at first said she couldn't, but gave it a
try! She looked at many other books as models, including Roald Dahl's
works, and the end result was Milo Speck, Accidental Agent. Please run and get this creative adventure book immediately!
Linda also encouraged students to think quietly to themselves about something they really wanted to try to do, something they wanted to become better at. I
The students were very engaged by Linda's presentation, which did not include any technology but kept them interested the whole time. Her themes of overcoming fear, taking small steps and finding models can connect with anyone.
