More About Linda Collison
I write adventure.
Born in Baltimore, Linda Collison moved west as a young woman cobbling together a composite career that has included nursing, parenting, teaching skydiving, freelance writing, volunteer firefighting, and other occupations. Linda and her husband, Bob Russell (they met skydiving) wrote two guidebooks in the 1990s based on their travel adventures. The husband-and-wife team has sailed many blue water miles together, aboard their sloop Topaz, based in Hawaii. Their three-week sailing experience aboard the HM Bark Endeavour, a replica of Captain Cook’s 18th century ship, inspired Linda to write Star-Crossed, a nautical historical novel published by Knopf. The New York Public Library chose Star-Crossed as one of the Books for the Teen Age — 2007.
Paradise; On the Edge and Slipping…
Our good friend Brendan McHugh took this photo of Bob and I standing on Topaz's bow at Honolulu's Ala Wai Boat Harbor, some years ago. You can see the mooring lines holding us to the pier -- 800-row -- out by the lava rock breakwater. This is easily one of the most stunning views any harbor can offer. And its not only the view -- sailors' pubs, yacht clubs, swim beaches, shopping malls and restaurants are close at hand. By the looks of our smiling faces we're in heaven! But[...]
I was born in a Baltimore suburb, practically on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay, but I didn’t do any sailing or boating of any kind until I was in my forties, married to a man who had sailed Lake Michigan as a teen and who had never gotten enough of it. We were living in Hawaii then, and we bought an old sailboat with good bones (a Luders-36) and spent a couple of years fixing her up and shaking her down in preparation for a 2500-mile crossing to the Society Isles in the South Pacific. “Miles to Windward” is a memoir of the first leg of a two year cruise, and was first published as a feature article in Sailing Magazine; October 2001.
