Background

Ethnicity: One of Linda Holeman’s grandmothers had Russian roots.

Linda Holeman was born on December 24, 1949, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She is a daughter of a television repair businessman.

Holeman has three siblings. She also had a brother Greg who had died of cancer at the age of fifteen.

Education

Linda Holeman spent her childhood in Winnipeg’s North End. She developed a passion for reading and collecting books at an early age. The same was for a desire to become a writer one day. It was always a secret dream of Holeman who wrote down her debut stories and ideas in a diary.

When Linda was eleven, her mother left the North End and relocated to another suburb with her children. It was traumatic for a young girl who felt homesick. For consolation, she kept reading books where she found fictional lives she didn't have in her real life. She kept writing down her experiences and inner feelings.

While in the fifth grade, one of her stories was chosen to be broadcast on CBC Radio’s Story Broadcast Journal. However, the first little success didn’t push the young Holeman to think seriously about becoming a writer.

In 1972, Linda Holeman received her Bachelor of Art in sociology and psychology from the University of Winnipeg. Instead of studying literature, she entered the University of Manitoba where three years later, she earned a Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood degree. In 1982, Holeman obtained a Master of Education in Educational Psychology.

The only literary training for Linda Holeman was a weekend workshop in writing for children at the University of Manitoba, and later the mentor program sponsored by the Manitoba Writers' Guild.

Career

Linda Holeman started her career in 1974 when she joined the staff of the Frontier School Division in Manitoba, Canada. After working a couple of years as a classroom and resource teacher, she moved to the Fort Garry School Division where she occupied the same post at Ryerson School. She had served in the capacity till 1984.

That year, she left teaching to look after her newly born daughter and other children. It was then when Holeman came back to her lifelong dream of becoming a writer. Her first manuscript, a 700-page historical novel for adults, appeared only in 1989. Although the work remained unpublished, it helped its author to learn the craft of writing.

Having no training in writing, Linda Holeman enrolled in a weekend workshop for children at the University of Manitoba the following year. It was there where the writer completed her first story for her future book ‘Saying Goodbye’ for young adults, entitled ‘Starlight, Star Bright’.

Holeman had a great number of rejections from publishers till her first little pieces were finally admitted by some small periodicals. The first big acclaim came to the author when her novel ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’ won Canadian Living magazine’s annual writing contest. A year later, ‘Saying Goodbye’ was the runner-up in a young adult short story competition promoted by Thistledown Press.

In 1992, Lester Publishing showed interest in some of Holeman’s stories. Three years later, her eleven stories were issued in a book ‘Saying Good-bye’. The publication finally persuaded Holeman to perceive herself as an accomplished writer. The next work by Linda Holeman, a chapter book for young readers ‘Frankie on the Run’, followed.

In 1996, Holeman started her collaboration with the University of Winnipeg where she occupied the post of a creative writing instructor at the university’s Continuing Education Division. The position coincided with the publication of her next book, ‘Flying to Yellow’, this time addressed for adults. The book consisting of fourteen short stories about family, relationships, love, loss, and change, was praised by critics. ‘The Promise Song’, issued in 1997, was a result of Holeman’s award-winning ‘The Shipping News’ novel for young adults.

From 1999 to 2000, the author served as a writer-in-residence at the Winnipeg Millennium Library.

In addition to her own writings, Linda Holeman has contributed lots of her short stories for adults and young adults, poems and articles to many newspapers, magazines, journals and anthologies, including Canadian Materials: A Reviewing Journal of Canadian Materials for Young People. She has also edited a young adult issue of Prairie Fire Magazine.

Besides, Holeman has been and is still actively involved in the literary life of Canada organizing courses, workshops, and seminars on writing for adults and students within the country and abroad, including teaching and mentoring at the Manitoba Writers’ Guild Mentor Program, the University of Winnipeg’s Continuing Education, and judging at the Governor-General’s Award for Children’s Literature.

To date, the most recent work by Holeman is ‘The Devil on Her Tongue’ of 2014.

Achievements

• Linda Holeman is an accomplished writer whose works are widely recognized around the world.
  
  She has authored fourteen books of fiction which were reprinted millions of times in twenty languages, including French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Greek, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Slovak, Czech, Croatian, Italian, and Hungarian. Holeman’s stories have been featured in many international and Canadian anthologies, such as the Journey Prize Anthology.
  
  Holeman has been a recipient of such prestigious awards as Our Choice Award by Canadian Children's Book Centre (three times), Young Adult Canadian Honour Book Award (twice), McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award (twice), Vicky Metcalf Short Story Editor Award, Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Honour Book, and Larry Turner Award for Nonfiction.
  
  She has been a winner of many contests, including the Canadian Authors Association Annual Nonfiction Contest, Canadian Living Annual Writing Competition, Thistledown Press Second National Young Adult Short Story Competition.
  
  Her books were named Books for the Teen Age selection by the New York Public Library three times.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Flying to Yellow

    (The short stories that make up Flying to Yellow recreate ...)

    1996
  • Devil's Darning Needle

    (Each one of this collection's poignant, finely crafted st...)

    1999
  • The Moonlit Cage: A Novel

    (Daryâ’s simple life in mid-nineteenth-century Afghanistan...)

    2005
  • The Devil on Her Tongue

    (A spellbinding story of loss, romance and betrayal set in...)

    2014
  • Frankie on the Run

    (When Farmer Halley drops off Frankie, the pig, in a stran...)

    1995
  • Raspberry House Blues

    (Poppy who lives with her adoptive father and his new wife...)

    2000
  • The Linnet Bird: A Novel

    (“For you, I will write of it all – part truth, part memor...)

    2004
  • Toxic Love

    (It is a distinctive collection of short stories by Linda ...)

    2003
  • The Saffron Gate

    (When a tragic accident shatters Sidonie O'Shea's sheltere...)

    2009
  • Promise Song

    (The year is 1900 and orphaned 14-year-old Rosetta and her...)

    1997
  • Search of the Moon King's Daughter

    (A story about Emmaline who loves nothing more than books ...)

    2003
  • Saying Goodbye

    (This collection of ten stories explores the confusion, fr...)

    1995
  • Mercy's Birds

    (Learning to accept help can be the hardest lesson of all)

    1998
  • In a Far Country 2008
  • The Lost Souls of Angelkov 2012

Views

Quotations: "[Writing] never gets easier but, underneath all the pain, there is deep, abiding love for this thing I do this thing that ‘belongs’ to me, which I am responsible for and can never abandon. This blessing – this love of taking words and creating stories."

"Without any real comprehension of what I was doing, while writing the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual aspects of what was happening in my life, I was figuring it out. I learned that even when living through the darkest times, it was like I was watching from afar all that was happening – with me a part of it – taking mental notes and pictures so I could pull them out and study them when I felt more in control."

"And for me, part of writing – especially my historic fiction – is the travel where I’m forced to stand up to live which gives me insight into the country I’m writing about."

Membership

Linda Holeman is a member of the Canadian Authors Association, the Writers Union of Canada, the Manitoba Writers’ Guild, and the Winnipeg Children's Literature Roundtable.

She has also been a member of the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators, and Performers.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "At her best, [Holeman] creates characters so familiar that it's almost impossible not to place yourself right in the story. This is a writer who can weave such a spell that a dilemma can become your dilemma and your gut tightens with the stress." Elizabeth MacCallum, author and reviewer

Interests

• reading, collecting books, traveling, gardening

Connections

Linda Holeman is married to Jon Holeman. They have three children Zalie, Brenna, and Kitt.

husband:

Jon Holeman

Daughter:

Zalie Holeman

Daughter:

Brenna Holeman

Son:

Kitt Holeman

References

• Linda Holeman's Website