About Linda - author profile

Linda Watson-Brown was born in Edinburgh a long time ago.  She attended Tynecastle High School where she perfected the skills of skiving classes and hanging around graveyards.  At the end of fifth year, she realised that this wasn’t going much of a career option, so she buckled down a bit.  She was told by a careers advisor that writing wasn’t really a job, and that a Biology diploma at a local college might be within her grasp.  As most of her biology was getting studied in the aforementioned graveyards, that seemed a bit of a waste of time so University was attempted.  Strathclyde was duly chosen due to its proximity to decent shopping and drinking outlets, and an English degree was signed up for.  A couple of history and philosophy options filled up most of the timetable, and politics was stuck in there as it meant part-time jobs could be fitted into the week as well.  It turned out to be a pretty good choice, and a damn sight more interesting than reading renaissance poetry, learning about spinning and weaving again, and debating whether or we were all doomed.  Four years later, joint honours degree in hand, Politics saved the day again and a Masters was the choice this time.
 
After not very long looking into the thrilling topic of gender socialization and its effects on civic competence (no, really), the time-honoured traditional route of signing up for a never-to-be-finished Ph.D. was undertaken.  After a year studying something to do with women and power, a job as research assistant to the outgoing head of department meant that the first of many delays could kick in.  A bit more research was tried for a while, alongside tutoring and journalism, before a lecturing job in the Politics department at the University of Edinburgh was offered.  By this time, Linda had met some ginger bloke who seemed alright, and in her third year of lecturing listened to her ovaries rather than her c.v.  The Ph.D. was long forgotten by the time Baby 1 appeared.  Helpfully, her time at Edinburgh University had taught her much more about misogyny, class and downright nastiness than any research project.  Off she went in search of a nice place to work, and actually found one in the Politics department at Stirling University.  Part-time lecturing and tutoring there in Politics and Sociology as well as with the Open University plodded along, and then the ovarian chant started up again and morning sickness took over from dialectical materialism.
 
In the eighth month of that foray into pregnancy, it seemed like quite a good idea to get another stressful job, this time a post back at the University of Edinburgh.  If saying that she was involved in teaching political science had been a bit of a conversation stopper, it was nothing compared to working in a Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.  As co-ordinator of, and non-clinical lecturer in Reproductive Health, Linda worked in one of the most prestigious faculties in the world.  Sadly, however, it was also an environment where the birth of Dolly the cloned sheep was of far more interest than that of a real child, so when Baby 2 made an early appearance, she was encouraged to ‘pop’ back to work a few weeks after a caesarean to ensure that students fully appreciated the politics of women’s health.
 
In the middle of post natal depression and an almost complete loopy, Linda started contributing op-ed pieces to The Scotsman.  She was offered a job there, and wrote three columns a week as well as features and editorial, before becoming freelance and working on various tabloid and broadsheet titles, as well as women’s magazines.  While interviewing literary agent and former Edinburgh International Book Festival director and Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council, Jenny Brown, Linda decided to become a writer and Jenny colluded.  In 2004, she was awarded an Arts Council Writer’s Bursary for her forthcoming autobiography, which will come out one day. Honest.
 
The following year, Baby 3 came along just as Linda’s ghostwriting career was becoming established, and brought some really amazingly impressive post natal depression.  Earlier this year, Linda, the ginger bloke and those babies all moved from Edinburgh to the North East of Scotland which seems very nice if frequently unintelligible. The lost years are just about becoming more manageable, and writing about serial killers with Maria is bound to help that.  Isn’t it?

Email Linda: l.wb@stampless.co.uk

Visit Linda's web site - www.lindawatsonbrown.co.uk