Linda C. Wisniewski
Linda C. Wisniewski is a former librarian who shares an empty nest with her retired scientist husband in Doylestown, PA. Linda teaches memoir workshops and produces webinars for the Pearl S. Buck Writing Center. She was born in Amsterdam, New York and is a graduate of SUNY at Buffalo and the library school at Villanova University.
Her work includes fiction, memoir and personal essays and has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies both print and online. Her credits include publications as diverse as the Philadelphia Inquirer, Massage, The Quilter, the Christian Science Monitor, gravel and Foliate Oak.
Linda worked as a reporter and columnist for the Bucks County Women’s Journal and the Bucks County Herald. She has won fiction and essay contests from the Wild River Review, the Pearl S. Buck Writing Center, Mom Writers Literary Magazine, and the Story Circle Network and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Linda’s memoir, Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother and Her Polish Heritage was published in 2008 by Pearlsong Press. Her novel, Where the Stork Flies, was published in 2021 by Sand Hill Review Press.
Twitter: @LindaWis
Instagram: @LindaCWisniewski
Vacation druthers… City or Rural destination? Why?
I enjoy small cities. My favorite vacation was a week in Bruges - a chocolate shop on every corner, lace and mussels and beer, canals and swans. I could live there, I think. It's like a fairy tale town. I also loved Paris and did the top item on my wish list - sat in a sidewalk cafe and people watched while eating a croissant. Barcelona was the most recent, and again it was the food - tapas! I sense a theme here. Eating from place to place. Maybe that's why I so enjoy the Amazon Prime show, Somebody Feed Phil.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
Sure do! I love to knit almost every night in front of the TV. I've watched a lot of Netflix programs that way, and honestly, I don't know what I'd do if I had to just sit and watch. Knitting is a soothing, relaxing activity for me. Ever since my mother taught me as a girl, I've made baby sweaters, afghans, dishcloths....and even once knit a tie for my father-in-law! He actually wore it to work at the post office on the day I was coming to visit. I became a quilter much later in life, and enjoy picking out fabric, choosing colors for a project and piecing it together (by machine, never by hand - I don't have the patience!) I'm not an expert by any means, but my studio/writing room walls are decorated with my little projects. I'm not good at binding quilts, so most of the time they're a little lopsided. Looking up at them as I write reminds me that I can make something nice, even if it's not perfect.
What do you worry about?
What's going to happen to my country next? I watch and read way too much national and international news, probably because I am under the illusion that if I know more about what's going on, I can figure out how it will end (well.) The increased outright hatred in the U.S. scares and saddens me. At a protest a couple of years ago, I was taken by a woman holding a sign that read: "We've seen this before. Signed, Jews." We gave each other sad little nods. The current fighting over mask-wearing to protect ourselves and others during the pandemic that's ravaging the world is beyond my comprehension, except that people just want to fight each other. I belong to a women's giving circle called Together Women Rise that supports grassroots women's organizations in places of extreme poverty, and that gives me hope.
What brings you great joy?
That's a good question to follow up the one about my worries! Let's see: Singing with others even though I can't carry a tune in a bucket, dancing at a wedding (doesn't happen nearly often enough,) being with people who are happy and full of life, even if they are strangers to me. I once happened upon a parade in New York City (where there's a parade almost every weekend!) The people marching, playing instruments, dancing in the street, were East Asians but I don't remember the exact culture they were celebrating. I remember the bright colors, the loud music, and the happy smiling races. They lifted me for the rest of the day, and I kept telling people about it. "Did you see the parade on XXth Avenue?"
My grown sons have also brought me great joy many times, and so has my husband, just being together on holidays and vacations, sharing a celebration. My younger son once said "Being together is a gift" and it made me feel I had done something right raising him.
What piece of clothing tells the most interesting story about your life?
My first wedding dress. I was engaged to my college boyfriend, who was Jewish. My family was Catholic. We planned to have an interfaith wedding officiated by a Unitarian minister but my boyfriend's father was ready to disown him, so we had a civil ceremony with a judge instead. My dress was a department store "sample" I got for about forty bucks, and my mother shortened it from floor length to knee-length. It was a fraught time for everyone. The marriage lasted ten years, and it ended not because of religious differences but because we both had such different outlooks on life. I don't know why we didn't see that in the beginning. We were so young. It was the 1960s, and everything traditional was suspect. Hence, cutting down the dress. Having a small wedding in a courthouse. He'd probably agree we should have really rebelled against societal norms and just lived together!
