Lynda Rutledge Stephenson

A Texas-born professional writer and freelance journalist, Lynda's work has appeared widely in both national and international publications, has had the opportunity to tell stories that are almost as broad as her curiosity.

In her 17 year career, besides authoring her own nonfiction and fiction, she's been a freelance journalist, book collaborator, ghostwriter, travel writer, restaurant and film reviewer, website journalist, copywriter, book club director, and college professor.

As a freelance journalist, she's hang-glided off a small Swiss mountain, petted baby rhinos, snorkeled with endangered sea turtles and dodged hurricanes to write dozens of articles for magazines and newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune Magazine, Chicago Sun-Times, Poets & Writers, Houston Post, San Diego Union-Tribune,United Airlines in-flight magazine VisaVis, and Mobil Traveler. Her writing has taken her to Australia, Spain, Switzerland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Scotland, Hawaii, Mexico, and much of the Caribbean, Dutch West Indies, and Netherlands Antilles. And her travel photographs have appeared with many of her articles.

As a creative writer, most recently, she won the 2008 Writers League of Texas Manuscript Competition for her narrative nonfiction "AUTO Biography: A Family Story Told in Cars" (See bottom sidebar for an excerpt along with a chapter recently published in River Teeth narrative nonfiction journal) Along with short works published in literary journals, her small press novel Brave New Wanda, a topical comic novel about reprotech and winner of an Illinois Arts Council award, was published in 2004. Other awards and grants for her creative work include residencies at Ragdale Foundation and Atlantic Center for the Arts, scholarships to Ropewalk Retreat and Squaw Valley Community's Screenwriting Program, and juried attendance at Sewanee Writers Conference. (Her current works-in-progress include a novel about garage sales, antiques, rich old ladies and God set on Millennium New Year's Eve that's earned notice with excerpt publication and fellowships as well--excerpt below--and a secret nonfiction project about dogs known only to her dog who isn't talking.)

As an author, her topics reflect the same broad curiosity and experience. Ranging from intellectual to whimsical, from fiction and journalism to memoir and history, her past work includes Give Us A Child, literary journalism on the personal crises of infertility reviewed in U.S. News and World Report, Washington Post, and Chicago Sun-Times among others; The CIG Guide on Writing Your Family History, an irreverent genealogical writing manual, and The San Diego Zoo, A History, an ambitious, multi-year, two-volume project.

As a book collaborator, she's worked with people from all walks of life, from comedians to theologians. Since 1990, she has written over a dozen books as varied as the saga of a Beirut hostage's wife, the memoir of a crisis chaplain at 9/11's Ground Zero experience, the story of the famous house-building organization Habitat for Humanity championed by Jimmy Carter, the biography of a visionary San Diego Zoo director who pioneered today's open, conservation-minded modern zoo, and the story behind the worldwide hospital fleet charity Mercy Ships heralded by such world leaders as Former British Prime Minister John Major. (See "Collaboration Credits" and quotes below.)

As a contributing author, she's written on topics from travel (Frommer's America on Wheels) to relationships (Husbands and Wives) to music (Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music).

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COLLABORATION CREDITS (A selected list):
— Ships of Mercy with founder Don Stephens, 2005 (Houghton & Stoddard, UK/Nelson, USA), Foreword by Former British Prime Minister John Major
—God @Ground Zero with Crisis Chaplain Ray Giunta 2002 (Integrity)
— Mister Zoo, The Life and Legacy of Charlie Schroeder, biography of the legendary San Diego Zoo Director 1999(ZSSD)
— Frommer's America on Wheels, Great Lakes & Midwest, contributing author 1997 (MacMillan)
— A Simple, Decent Place to Live with Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity 2000 (Word)
— Beirut Diary with Sis Levin, wife of the CNN Beirut Chief who was one of the Beirut hostages; also the subject of an ABC Movie of the Week “Held Hostage” 1992 (IVP)

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QUOTES for "AUTO Biography: A Family Story Told in Cars"
2008 Writers League of Texas Manuscript Competition Winner

"Your use of cars as a motif is particularly fresh, making this a very American experience on a highly universal topic. And you've somehow managed to add slashes of humor into a heart-rending issue." --Writers League of Texas judges

"The entire book is coherent, surprising, snort-out-loud funny in some spots, quite poignant in others. That’s hard to pull off, but you do." ––Dinty W. Moore, Sudden Stories narrative nonfiction anthology editor and author, Accidental Buddhist.

"This is something of extraordinary quality––richly textured, with a perfectly created architecture all its own, chapters that zoom along like their totemic automobiles, a very fully created life unsparing in its tragedy & bitterness, but a book loaded with humor. I love it." ––Susanne Antonetta, author: Body Toxic, a New York Times Notable Book

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QUOTES/REVIEWS-BRAVE NEW WANDA

"Clever and idiosyncratic...the Ann Tylersque humor makes controversial topic fun." --Illinois Arts Council Competition judges

"A nifty novel: fluent, funny and touching. It would make a terrific movie." --John Casey, National Book Award Winner, Spartina

"Swiftly paced and punctuated by moments of biting humor, Rutledge’s story deftly investigates the ethical implications and the human effects of our advancing technology of birth. From Wanda’s point of view, it’s clear that such medical advances are not without consequence, for all the parties involved."--The New Pantagruel

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REVIEW--PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY of GOD@GROUND ZERO

"Among the throng of 'aftermath' books dealing with September 11, this one is distinguished by a gritty first-person perspective that achieves raw emotion without exploitation...' "

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TWO WRITING SAMPLES
(one literary/one journalistic about a favorite topic):

From a Chicago Sun-Times travel article:

TURTLE MOMENT

...There are moments in every trip taken that transcend all others, moments that are the true reason to travel. This was mine....
She was as big and round as a coffee table, more graceful than a fish, and she wasn't supposed to be there floating inches from me.
"You won't see the sea turtles while snorkeling," Point Pleasant Resort's manager had told me the day before, over the roar of a jet ski. "We usually see them sunning in the afternoon, but they are very shy."
There was no coral in St. Thomas Water Bay along the lush, hillside resort. There wasn't even much beach. There was sea grass, though, lots of it, the reason that green turtles, an endangered species indigenous to the Virgin Islands, lived there.
The health of the grass and therefore the health of the sea turtles had ecological activists working to ban jet ski rental from the bay, the manager had said.
I decided to go for a swim anyway.
The water was murky because of the wind. A few feet out, a school of large squid, all but motionless in the rocking water, stared back at me, and I felt a small snorkeling thrill. I adjusted my mask then turned my head. And there, swimming peacefully by, was the most gigantic turtle I had ever seen. Anywhere.
"'Yes!" I gasped audibly,a rather unwise thing to do while breathing through a snorkel. She was steering effortlessly through the choppy waters down to the sea grass, oblivious of me. I struggled to follow. Her head was the size of a small beachball, her eyes intelligent and calm. And for a few delicious moments I watched her feed on the sea grass below, marveling at her homely beauty, floating along with her and the water and the feeling of slowed time.
When I finally raised my head above water, I was shocked to see we were almost into open sea. And when I looked back, she was gliding away, her flippers slowly, powerfully slicing through the water, until the distant dark blue swallowed her whole.
By her size, she must have been almost 50 years old, the green turtle's maturation age. And my encounter with her in her world made her uncertain future suddenly very real.
Why had she ventured so far into the bay, so close to me?
"Do you hear anything?" asked the Point Pleasant's manager, grinning at my news. "The jet skis were temporarily banned this morning."
The island's newspaper ran a story the next day telling of the jet ski business owners' hardship, of the thousands of dollars they would lose during the ban.
It mentioned neither turtles nor sea grass.#
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From Ellipsis literary journal:

NOT THE SANGRIA

The waiter slips me another sangria. I haven't asked for it; it's a gift. The first has gone to my head. I shouldn't drink another. I really should go. It's midnight. But I close my hand around the glass, staying a little longer in this outdoor café across the boulevard from my hotel, far away from palaces and tourists and the famous nightlife of Madrid.
A polished baby grand piano is inches from my table. A slim man in black, with a face younger than his grey brillo mane is playing a Spanish tune. Nearby, quietly dignified, an old, old woman with a sienna wash in her hair is singing along. All around me are older women, alone, dressed in their best, here to sip and sway late into the summer night.
Sophisticates dressed in Prada and Armani air kiss each other in greeting then sit at the table near mine. I am caught watching them and I quickly look away. Spaniards stare; I can't get used to this. When I look back, she is so very casually still staring at me. With sangria bravada, I try to stare her down: I lose. I smile into my glass, looking once again away.
The chatter volume rises and the old woman is no longer singing. Good lord, the piano player is now playing Feelings. It seems so wrong. The air is filled with words I don't quite understand, a Spanish ensalada of alphabet sounds, and all I hear in my head are the lyrics of this lounge lizard standard.
A young couple hops off long skateboards and waits to be seated, ordering coca-colas. Just beyond them, a costumed man gilded like a dandy Goldfinger sets down a tip jar, steps up on a box and freezes, miming a statue of Don Quixote. A leather-skinned man, limp arm in a scarf sash, drops in a coin, walks into the café and asks to sit at a tiny table near the hedgerow with his back to the music. He orders a beer; he drinks it with his strong arm, setting it down harder than he has to. A big-boned, red-haired woman, green earrings dangling, takes the table by him facing the piano and orders ice cream. The waiter says something to them both as he brings the ice cream; they laugh. When he leaves, they keep talking in side glances as they sip and sup; their body language, though, is the language of strangers.
My waiter swishes by on his way to the table of ladies at my elbow, twirling his full serving platter, a balancing act; take one beer off, turn to keep the others from falling, take another, turn, another. Another. Another. He twirls, sometimes it seems, just because he wants to. Then suddenly, he stops. His free hand whisks a woman's purse off the back of her chair and places it in her lap with a rush of words and a sweeping gesture toward the dark. We have been cautioned, here in Madrid, that pickpockets are among us. An epidemic. Gypsies, they say. Or Russians. I've seen one only a few hours ago. Diversion, screams, running urchins, police from nowhere. Everyone in this city seems to have a pickpocket story, even me. In the metro, an old man tripped in front of where I stood. When I reached to catch his arm, I felt a brush, a tug, against my jeans' empty pocket. I whirled toward the man sitting near my hip, tried catching his eyes to see the truth in them, but he wouldn't look at me. When the doors opened, he disappeared. And when I looked back, so had the old man.
Tonight, here in the café, as I take another sip of the sangria, I remember to check my pockets and purse yet again, slower now as the sangria settles.
I feel a breeze. The women at the table beside me have all opened their hand-fans with a dozen flicks of their wrists and are fanning the breeze in time with the piano player's new tune, Guantanamero.
"Yo soy un hombre sincero..."
It is the only Spanish I have understood all day. Perhaps because I don't want to, I am thinking as the sangria warms me. There is something strangely stirring about not being in the world of words...in their world of words. This should feel wrong, bad, disquieting. Lonely. Instead, I feel connected in a whole other way. I recognize it, welcome it. It's almost spiritual, this feeling of quiet flow. The world is big; I am small. I'm unknown here, oddly free and easy. The piano player, dear god, is now playing Billy Joel. The Piano Man.
"Man, what are you doing here?"
What am I doing here? Why do people like me go anywhere we don't "belong?" Why do we wrangle passports and hurdle airport lines, suffer bone-jarring long flights, and hazard the goodwill of cultures not our own?
Tonight, I think I know. I am here because I need, sometimes, to be outside words, outside language, outside myself.
The old, old woman sitting ringside near the piano gets up to go. The waiters know her, one taking her arm and escorting her to the sidewalk's "door." She pauses there, smiling as he bows to her, then she slips slowly into the dark.
The skateboard couple passes, brushing my blouse. Out on the sidewalk, on the edge of the cafe's glow, they set their skateboards side by side, step upon them, and facing forward arm in arm, roll into the dark, gliding by a watching Don Quixote.
I check my bag again, and resist the impulse to check the time. Then taking another soft sip, I lean back in my chair, staying just a little longer in the flow of the sangria gift's warm red glow. Back home, back in my world of words, I'll have tales to tell of pickpockets and palaces. And when mine aren't dazzling enough, I'll tell other people's stories, running with the bulls, street brawls with streetwalkers: The expected. The exciting.
But this moment, this is for me.
Is it the sangria?
Perhaps. But no matter. No matter at all.

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SEE "QUICK LINKS" SIDEBAR FOR MORE CLIPS
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