My friend and fellow artist/writer/producer, George Gallo summed it up nicely in my book's foreward.  I have visions and hear voices in my head. I must capture a scene with oil paint. I must capture a scene with words.  I started writing when someone put a crayon in my hand.  They may not have been words that anyone else understood, but they meant something to me and I was trying to communicate something to you with them.  My writing has never left.  I detoured a bit with oil painting, who doesn't love Monet?  Now I am happily creating in both worlds! I have returned to my first love and the journey back has been thrilling. I left my day job (a manger at a Fortune 500 company) to become a creative entrepreneur. The company I worked for was my training ground: my school of hard knocks. It provided me with a number of skills I use today.  I began my journey into the artist world and today I am an instructor at Artist Network University and the Middletown Arts Center.  I am an award winning artist and have published art instruction books.  I also host a podcast call Art Chats with Linda Fisler.  Art Chats provides a way for artists to listen to master artists of today talk about their craft and provide information for our journey. This however was not enough. My writing beckoned me with each step of my journey.  I had to publish my fiction novel that I began writing long ago.  I would write throughout the years, but the demands of the day job interfered.  I fondly think back to the time when I threw a few items of clothes into my 1979 Thunderbird and took off one dark night for California.  It was where I wanted to be--where I needed to be.  I got as far as Indianapolis before reality set in and I turned my car around.  Defeated I went to work the next day, knowing they had won.  I proudly resigned from that day job in 2006 and have not looked back.  I have just published my debut mystery/thriller novel officially May 1, 2015.  Fourteen days later I received a wonderful validation that I should indeed listen to my muses. My debut novel, Blind Influence, had received an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Paris (France) Book Festival!  (I always add France--being from Ohio everyone thinks that it is Paris Kentucky...imagine that!) Award winning artist and award winning author now proudly on my resume', I look forward to writing my sequel to Blind Influence and the road ahead.  I'm secure in the knowledge that I have made the right decision and I also wonder what would have happened if I had kept heading west on that dark night.  Who knows? But I'm here now and looking forward to connecting with as many wonderful people here at the Authors Den.  After all, what is writing without readers?

Honorable Mention at the 2015 Paris Book Festival