Lindeman Leah

Article by Lois Ann Baker
Standard-Freeholder 15 April 2016

Bainsville - At just 23 years of age, this local author has published her first book and is already working on her second in a series of 13. Leah Lindeman was born and raised in Montreal. Lindeman's mother is Canadian and her father is from Bolivia, with both parents having a mix of other nationalities.
"I guess you could say I'm a mutt," she joked. Lindeman married young, at just 18 and had her first child when she was just l9 and is now the proud mom of three young children.
When she was a young girl she planned on becoming a cardiac surgeon. In order to get the grades needed for such an ambitious career, Lindeman asked to be home schooled for her high school years. But one day while lying on the family trampoline
she suddenly felt very poetic.
"Poetry just sprang upon me, it just came naturally," she said.
''I never looked for it before and all of a sudden I just made a poem."
Lindeman said that prompted her to go for walks around the neighbourhood where she found the desire to write poetry kept coming.
"I really, really enjoyed it," she said. The poetry inspired her to take a correspondence course with the Writers Institute for Children's Literature in Connecticut. She was also taking piano lessons at the time and decided to drop the piano so she could focus on writing instead.
"I graduated with honours from that course," she said. The last assignment for the course was to write the first three chapters of a novel.
"What really was the inspiration for this novel was I had gone on a camping trip with my family and friends of the family," said Lindeman. The story came up about
the Halifax explosion, which she had never heard of before.
"I thought it was such an amazing story," she said. "I just felt I needed
to say something about it. I needed to come up with a story."
Lindeman said she started with a basic plot and as she was writing a number of new characters came forward.
Lindeman said this was the first in a series of l3 novels she is hoping to write, each one taking place in a Canadian province around a significant instance and time period for that province.
"I'm a big history buff, I love history, so I thought why not combine the two:' she said.
Lindeman is also turning the series into a learning opportunity for herself.
"I already started on my second novel that takes place in BC," she said. "It's during the Caribou gold rush. I'm exploring my Canadian history as I do this."
Lindeman will be launching her book on June 4 in Hudson, Que., and
plans on having book signings shortly after that in Alexandria and Cornwall.
The book can be bought at Auld Kirktown in Lancaster, The Book Nookin Alexandria. Amazon, Bames & Noble, Kindle, Kobo and almost every platform for an eReade.