About The Author

As a child, Linda Wirtanen was told she had two career options: nurse or teacher. Instead, at the age of 16 she won an essay contest sponsored by the Chicago Herald Tribune and became hopelessly attached to the idea of being a writer.

Some years later, with master’s degree in hand and no job prospects in sight, Linda took herself on a six-week, self-guided tour of Europe. The travel article she produced detailing her adventures in Czechoslovakia earned her half a page in The New York Times’ Sunday Travel Section and fueled brief hopes of a meteoric literary career.

Within a few years, she had tried her hand at magazine editing, newsletter writing, newspaper reporting, and scripting for sales seminars. It was only when she was hired as a copywriter by Ann Arbor’s leading ad agency that she began to feel truly at home as a professional. (And after all, she told herself, wasn’t this how Dorothy Sayers started?)

Five years later, she launched Fitzgerald Communications—a writing, editing and consulting service for clients in business, industry, health care, academia, and the nonprofit sector.

Since then, her company has completed hundreds of projects in digital and print media and, on occasion, has garnered awards from the American Advertising Federation, the Ann Arbor Advertising Club (AAF affiliate), CASE, the Detroit Creative Director’s Council, the National Council on Foundations, the Society for Technical Communication, and the Toledo Advertising Club.

Mantra for Murder is Linda’s first mystery novel. A sequel, Love Me Deadly, is in the planning stages.