Once upon a time....

...there was a writer

I was born a writer. I can't remember a time I didn't write, though my earliest scribbles, while I was in diapers, were not decipherable even by me. Later, I saved ideas for school assignments and awaited opportunities to write them. My first attempt at an epic, when I was eight, was a science fiction story so incredibly precocious that, if I could find it, I'm sure I'd find a new calling as a writer. Well, maybe not. Still, it was a start: the story of a young boy and girl who together explored the universe.

That's something else: I was also a born romantic. Nearly all my fiction involves a romantic relationship. No wonder I wound up writing romance novels!

I have also always enjoyed solving puzzles, which led me to write suspense into all of my stories, too, no matter what their genre or subgenre.

I stopped writing fiction in law school -- confusing cases and boring briefs left little time for pleasure. But, I couldn't stay away. Soon as I could carve out time early in the morning before work at my first law job, I wrote for fun once more. Cathartic! In my first finished -- and as yet unpublished -- mystery, I killed off a law firm's senior partner.

My first published fiction consisted of several short stories in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first, "Different Drummers," won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for best first mystery short story of 1988.

My first novel was the 1995 Love Spell time travel romance A Glimpse of Forever.  Since then, I have had 45 additional novels published--mysteries and romances, including paranormal romance and romantic suspense.

In addition to creating fiction, I've been a transactional lawyer and loved writing contracts--although currently I am a full-time writer.   I am a member of the Orange County (California), Los Angeles chapters of the Romance Writers of America.  I also belong to Sisters in Crime, Los Angeles Chapter, and my mystery short story "Love on Sunset Boulevard" is in the SinC/LA anthology Murder on Sunset Boulevard.  It was fun getting back to my "roots" and writing a mystery short story again.  I am additionally a member of the Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers.  I live in the Los Angeles area with my husband and my Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Mystie and Cari. 

Please e-mail me at lindaojohnston@rocketmail.com.