Linda Holeman

Writing career

Holeman is the author of fourteen books of fiction, which have sold millions of copies world-wide. Her work has been translated into twenty languages, and includes two adult collections of literary short stories, Flying to Yellow and Devil’s Darning Needle, as well as the historical novels The Linnet Bird, The Moonlit Cage, In A Far Country, The Saffron Gate, The Lost Souls of Angelkov, and The Devil On Her Tongue. Her particular interest in writing historical fiction is demonstrating the plight of women in the 18th and 19th centuries, from the point of view of strongly drawn female protagonists. She travels widely to research her novels in great depth, and her ability to capture place and era has consistently met with positive critical review. Amnesty International UK has chosen The Moonlit Cage as one of the "Ten Great Books on Human Rights", along with To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, The Help, and Mosquito.

Her young adult body of work consists of a collection of short stories, Saying Good-Bye, which was re-released as Toxic Love, and four novels: Promise Song, Mercy’s Birds, Raspberry House Blues, and Search of the Moon King’s Daughter. She has also written a first-chapter book for younger readers, Frankie on the Run. Linda has been the recipient of numerous awards, honours and nominations for her young adult work.

As well as being published in many journals and periodicals, Holeman's short stories have been widely anthologized in Canada – most noticeably in The Journey Prize Anthology – and abroad. She was twice short-listed for the CBC Literary Competition, and won the Larry Turner Award for Non-Fiction, the Canadian Author/Winnipeg Free Press Non-Fiction Competition, and the Canadian Living Magazine National Writing Competition.

Linda acted as guest editor for a young adult issue of Prairie Fire Magazine, for which she was awarded the Vicky Metcalf Short Story Editor Award. She has been a member of the Manitoba Artists in the Schools Program and CANSCAIP, toured with the Canadian Children's Book Centre, acted as a mentor in the Manitoba Writers Guild Mentor Program, and taught creative writing through the University of Winnipeg's Continuing Education Programme. She has served on a number of juries across Canada, including the Governor-General’s Award for Children’s Literature, and created and facilitated writing workshops on many aspects of the writing process to both students and adults nationally and internationally. She held a nine-month term as Writer-in-Residence at the Millennium Library in Winnipeg, and served on the editorial advisory board for Turnstone Press and on the board of the Manitoba Writers Guild. She is a member of the Writers Union of Canada.