Q: Please tell us about yourself.
My life-long career has been in teaching. I taught in Seaford, in the Middle School when it was a Junior High, and in the High School. I taught science, ending my career in the high school as Department Chairperson, teaching biology, chemistry and forensic science. I went on to teach at Hofstra University, forensic science and biotechnology. I also supervised science student teachers at Adelphi University.
It was my forensic science courses coupled with my love of Nancy Drew and other mystery heroes that led me to write the Annie Tillery Mysteries, The Madonna Ghost, Girl with Pencil, Drawing, and Secrets in the Fairy Chimneys.
It was also my involvement with my students that inspired me to create a young female heroine who embodies the qualities that my students could emulate, enabling them to create happy productive lives for themselves.
I was awarded the Seaford High School Teacher of the Year in 1989, and received an award from the American Association of University Women in 1995 for inspiring young women to pursue the field of science.
The Madonna Ghost has won Rising Star status from iUniverse. Both The Madonna Ghost and Secrets in the Fairy Chimneys have given me a place in The Authors Show’s “50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading”.
Presently, I am marketing my Annie Tillery Mysteries. I am also producing a TV show, The Writer’s Dream, on LTV-EH, a local access station in East Hampton, as well as Long Island Cablevision. We interview guests who are involved with writing, publishing and marketing in all genres.
It is my goal to find venues to help market my books to schools and libraries. My website has lesson plans based on my books. Eventually I want to gain entrée into film and television, hoping to see my books on either the big or the little screen, not just Kindle and Nook. The books are now available as soft cover, E-book , and digital audio. Find me on Twitter, facebook, Youtube and Linked-In.
I’m a native New Yorker, born in N.Y.C. and a lover of that city. Living on Long Island affords the best beach experience on the East Coast which led to my years of sailing.
I love to cross country ski and also love to travel. Those interminable waits at the airports and long flights afford me the opportunity to write which I still do long-hand on a yellow pad before committing text to the word processor.
Q: Tell us about your books
My Annie Tillery Mysteries series chronicles the adventures of my eponymous teen heroine. Annie lives with her Aunt Jill Tillery who is a NYC police detective. She struggles with the resentment caused by her mother’s battles with alcoholism, and her father’s absence from her life due to his job with the State Department. It nevertheless, does not stop her from enjoying living with her aunt and her intriguing job in NYC. Annie is attractive, not beautiful, smart but not nerdy, and just daring enough to get involved in the intriguing circumstances that knock at her door.
In the first book, The Madonna Ghost, they go to Fire Island for a vacation. Annie meets a boy who tells her about a local ghost. They investigate and find that the ghost is hiding a crime that impacts on national security. In Girl with Pencil, Drawing, Annie uncovers a ring of art forgers and thieves as she tries to clear her art instructor of the murder of the art gallery’s director. In Secrets in the Fairy Chimneys, my heroine travels to Turkey to work at an archaeological dig where artifacts are disappearing and dangerous sabotage is afoot. These books involve Annie in exciting plots of a timely nature, give good understandable insights into how forensic science is used to solve crimes, and bring in the extra added bonus of a little romance. The settings are glamorous and exciting, if not a little scary at times.
Q: What inspired you to write this series?
The inspiration for the books comes from my background teaching science, in particular forensic science. My course was interactive enabling my students to solve cases presented to them, creating crime scenes, isolating clues, researching the analysis of clues, and bringing a suspect to justice in a mock trial. Through my own research I began to develop some of the cases that were most interesting to me. I began to put characters in the stories, and the next step found me taking a few writing courses that produced the books.
Annie is based on many of my female students. Folks ask if she is my alter ego. I think there is a bit of the author in many of the characters they create. Annie is the teenager I would have loved to have been, especially in the period during which I loved Nancy Drew.
The forensics background and my love of Nancy Drew led me to use this tag line for the series: “Nancy Drew Meets CSI”.
Q: How much time per week do you spend writing/editing your work?
I spend about 25 hours a week on “book work”, on average.
Q: If you could meet three authors, which authors would you choose?
Charles Dickens. I would like to get his commentary on how the works he wrote in the 19th Century still hold true today.
Steven King. I would like to ask him to critique my books. I’d just like to talk to him.
Steve Berry. I’d like to talk to him about the best way to teach and preserve history in literary fiction.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
I am working furiously on marketing. Come the New Year, I will start my next Annie Tillery, which will involve her great grandmother, forays into her past, and a mystery in her WWII past. I am looking forward to the research that L.I., the Cradle of Aviation, will involve.
The Madonna Ghost
Seventeen-year-old Annie Tillery and her Aunt Jill set off for Long Island’s Fire Island for a vacation of surf, sun, and sailing. Annie is happy to leave behind the stress of her relationship with her parents. Aunt Jill, who is an NYPD detective, is mixing her vacation with a case she must keep secret from Annie.
Amateur detective Annie Tillery is at it again. After she wins a series of art lessons at a prestigious art gallery, Annie shows up for her first lesson to find her instructor, Francesca Gabrielli, in a volatile argument with John DiCristiani, the art gallery’s director, over his incessant requests for her to illegally copy art masterpieces.
Annie Tillery joins boyfriend, Ty Egan, and his best friend, Cedric Zeeks, at an archaeological dig in Turkey. All is not what it seems in the fascinating city of Istanbul. The gang finds themselves tracking treasure hunters and thieves through mysterious passageways in Istanbul’s old city, and the treacherous caves surrounding the ancient archaeological site.
Linda Maria Frank: With the introduction of the Annie Tillery Mysteries, Linda has been launching a new career as author. Inspired by a childhood passion for Nancy Drew books and the popular television series, CSI, she successfully married an appealing heroine (Annie Tillery) with a gripping story plots to create these new fiction books for mystery readers. The Madonna Ghost has earned the distinctive “Editor’s Choice” and “Rising Star” awards. In Girl With Pencil Drawing, the second book in the series, Annie stays one step ahead of the bad guys. The third book, Secrets in the Fairy Chimneys, released this year, will soon join the others in digital audio.
Frank’s first love was teaching science, her assignments ranging from Middle School to graduate level courses at Hofstra and Adelphi Universities. It was the forensic science courses that gave her the story lines for her heroine, Annie, who is based on a composite of former beloved students.
Presently Frank is the producer of “The Writer’s Dream”, a series of shows with writers who discuss different aspects of the profession, seen on youtube.
The Madonna Ghost won Rising Star from iUniverse. It also got the author a spot into the Authors Show 50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading. The author is a finalist this year for Secrets in the Fairy Chimneys. The cover for “Secrets” is a finalist in the Book Goodies cover contest. http://www.wnbnetworkwest.com/WnbAuthorsShow50Writers2014-preVote.html
Links
Websites: http://www.lindamariafrank.com
http://annietillery.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AnnieTilleryMysteries?ref=hl
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnieTillery123
Chapter 1 of “Secrets in the Fairy Chimneys” on YouTube
Author Page on Amazon