12 Things you didn’t know about Lindsay McKenna

1. I lived in 22 different places in six different Western states growing up by the time I was 18. My father was Eastern Cherokee and seemed to move with the seasons. Every nine months, roughly, we would pick up and move the family. I was born in San Diego, California, but then lived in Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Idaho and Oregon. I’ve always said that I got a Western tour of the USA and it has served me well in my writing life. I lived in places like Phoenix, Arizona, Fort Wingate, New Mexico, Billings, Montana, Blackfoot, Idaho. In Oregon, where we spent more time, Prarie City, Klamath Falls, Medford and Ontario. Redding, California, too. Some of these rural towns show up in my books.

2. I had my own start up venture business at 16 years old. I started picking and selling night crawlers (worms, folks) in Medford, Oregon, to pay for my school clothes and books. Our family was very poor. I was out on my hands and knees in our fruit orchard from nightfall to midnight every night, picking huge night crawlers. I sold hundreds of dozens of them to local sporting goods stores as well as to fisherman who pulled into our home and sold them for twenty-five cents a dozen. I earned $1200 a year doing this.

3. I always wanted to learn how to fly at 17. I took six hundred dollars of my “worm money” and bicycled up to the Medford Airport, Oregon, and plopped it down on the counter of a flight school. I told them to teach me how to fly. I was 17 when I soloed at twelve hours, and piloted a Cessna 150 around the Rogue River Valley until I was 18. When I graduated from high school, I had 39 hours of flight time. I was the only girl in the high school to be a student pilot. The flight experience shows up in my books all the time.

4. I wanted to join the US Air Force at 18 because I loved flying and they had flying clubs where I could continue to fly my plane. I took the recruiter test and scored a 95% on it. They guaranteed me air control school to become an air traffic controller. I was thrilled pink. I brought the news home to my father who was a Navy vet, and he urged me to go into the Navy instead. They didn’t have flight clubs. But I grudgingly went into the Navy instead and became a meteorologist, but my flying days were over. From this three year experience, I later, in 1983, created the military romance genre with Captive of Fate, Silhouette Special Edition. Write what I know!

5. I’m a gemologist. From the time I could walk, I would pick up pretty stones and put them in my pockets. I was a rock hound kid growing up. Later in life, I got a Degree in Colored Stones from the GIA (world renown and recognized Gemology Institute of America). I use my knowledge of gemstones/rocks/geology in my books, as well. Nothing I learn ever goes to waste and generally shows up in books.

6. I was a woman fencer in my early twenties. My husband, David, who was Top Ten Epee Champion for Ohio State University in 1965, taught me how to fence epee and sabre. Those two weapons were forbidden for women to fence because they were “too heavy.” I said baloney and started fencing the men—and winning half my battles. I then helped start an East Coast drive among women fencers, to allow the AFLA (American Fencing League Association) to give us permission to fence all three weapons: foil, epee and sabre. Our efforts over three years’ times broke down this silly regulation and women were then allowed to fence all three weapons. Today at the Olympics? Women fence all three weapons and I had a hand in starting in that movement. Women can do anything but then, if you read my books, my heroines are can-do women who don’t let the word ‘no’ stop them from doing what they’re good at.

7. I was one of the first women volunteer firefighters in Ohio in 1983. My husband had joined the West Point Volunteer Fire Department three years earlier. I wrote books at home, and when fires occurred during the day, I was there and could help save lives and property, so I joined. Me and 20 coal miners. Half the men were against me joining, saying I couldn’t do it. Well, I did. I took fire science courses on hazardous material down at the Reynoldsburg Fire Academy in Columbus, Ohio. I drove fire trucks, the water tanker, did everything the boys did and did it as well as they did. Again, my experiences from those three years I served my community in Lisbon, Ohio area, shows up often in my books one way or another.

8. My mother, a Scorpio, began teaching me astrology when I was nine years old. I went professional and became a medical astrologer. It’s a very rare career to have in astrology because you have to have a medial background to do it. I was an Emergency Medical Technician (Arizona 1996-2000). I wrote a book that is a best seller to this day: Medical Astrology by Eileen Nauman (my ‘real’ name).

9. I was horse crazy growing up. At age 12, I saved a 2-year old mustang stallion from being killed for chicken feed. I had earned $45.00 picking potatoes up in Blackfoot, Idaho the year before. My father took me down to the holding pens at the factory in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and I paid the money to the man. Pretty Boy, as I named him, was a red chestnut with two white socks. He was brought over by a wrangler on a horse because he was wild and untamed. We put him in our pasture and I tamed him with love over the next month. I had many wonderful years riding him.

10. Later, my husband and I owned an Arabian Horse Farm in Lisbon, Ohio for ten years. We bred, foaled, raised, tamed and showed Crabbet line (England) Arabian horses. I showed in English and Park and placed well. We had our own Arabian stallion, Neynage, a beautiful gray stud who bred beautiful foals. When I write about horses in my books? I know what I’m talking about.

11. I’m an introvert, a hermit and love telling stories. It is my passion. I’m sure I picked up the “story telling” gene from my part-Native American father. I consider myself one of the five percent in the world that love what they do for a living. I’m grateful to be in this position. As long as I breath, I’ll be writing stories.

12. I’ve always been clairvoyant, the sixth sense most of us have, but rarely use. I have what I call “wolf hearing.” I hear sounds/noises outside human range. I see auras around people. I see their ancestors or those who have passed on if I “open” myself up to look through my third eye (brow chakra) instead of my two physical eyes. When I write paranormal (Warriors for the Light/Silhouette- Harlequin Nocturne) a lot of what I put in those six books was more truth than fiction. Might as well use what I know. Right? haha.

About Linsday McKenna

The "Top Gun of Women's Military Fiction," Linsday McKenna has had 145 books published under the McKenna name since 1981, most dealing with military or mercenary subjects, for several publishers: Simon and Schuster, Warner, Avon and Berkely, Harlequin/Silhouette. She is the originator of the Military Romance genre, with "Captive of Fate," Silhouette Special Edition, 1983. She has sold 23 million books worldwide and in 33 foreign languages. She proudly served in the US Navy and was a meteorologist.

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About TANGLED PURSUIT

Navy SEAL Chief Wyatt Lockwood is fascinated by Marine sniper Captain Talia Culver. But she wants nothing to do with him after learning of his reputation as a heartbreaker. The cocky Texan refuses to take the hint and keeps placing himself in Tal’s path. When she agrees to help him tend to needy families in an Afghan village, she learns there’s more to this SEAL than meets the eye. But is she strong enough to risk having her heart broken again?

Wyatt can’t stay away from the beautiful, surly Marine. Tal is fascinating—and frustrating—and he is determined to crack through her tough exterior and get to know the soft woman he knows lurks beneath the surface. When he joins Tal on a sniper mission in the Afghan mountains, their bond continues to grow. But the mission takes a dangerous turn. Has he lost his chance with Tal forever?