We were delighted to sit down with Linda K. Sienkiewicz in the days before the release of her novel Love and Other Incurable Ailments.
RHP: How long did it take you to write your book?
LKS: About ten years ago, I knew I wanted to write about a difficult character, one that might initially seem hard to love or understand. So, naturally, I thought: Fun! Perfect! This should be easy. I had a few beginnings and a short story, but nothing materialized. Other projects kept me busy, or maybe I just resisted it. I believe writers call this “timing.” Then I heard Jim White’s “Objects in Motion,” a haunting song about a man who finds a suitcase full of love letters drifting down a river. That’s when Serenity’s story began to take shape.
In White’s song, the letters are unsigned, unanswered, and full of longing. He wonders who wrote them—was she old, was she young, or was her heart undone by the cruel business of loving. Then the song takes a turn and ends with a line that stuck with me:“You can’t waste the whole damn day loving what you need to cast away. For from the flame of love comes the cinder of regret. Sometimes the thing you cling to most is the thing you’d best forget.”
That lyric and the image of those lost letters sparked in my imagination. In 2019, I started writing what would become Love and Other Incurable Ailments with a simple “what if” when an anxiety-riddled character, Serenity, finds a box of love letters. Fueled by magical thinking and a deep longing to be loved, she sets out to find the letter writer and give him the ending she believes he deserves and maybe claim a happy ending of her own in the process. Optimism is a powerful force, even when it gets us into trouble, as it does for Serenity.
We all have objects in motion, including emotions, memories, and obsessions that we struggle to release. Sometimes we carry these things for too long. Sometimes we let go too soon. And sometimes we build an entire novel around them, which is either healing or avoidance. But somewhere in-between is where my story was born. Thanks to Regal House Publishing for offering me a contract for the book in 2024.
RHP: Who supports you as a writer?
LKS: My husband, but the funny thing is he doesn’t often read my work. I decided long ago not to ask him to read my poetry or novels because they aren’t the kind of writing he enjoys. I’ve learned reading isn’t the only proof of support. This has saved us both a great deal of time and many awkward conversations. For example, he lugs boxes of books to author fairs without complaint. He brakes for bookstores when we travel, sometimes less enthusiastically than I would, but still.
Even though we spend a good deal of time on Ocracoke Island, where Love and Other Incurable Ailments is set, my husband travels there with intention. He’s not just a companion; he’s a helpful research assistant. Unpaid and highly dedicated. He protects my time. We are both retired and he cooks so I can work on projects. I have a dedicated writing room, and he understands that when the door’s closed, I’m somewhere else entirely (usually writing but maybe staring off into the distance or making a TikTok reel). He built me an adjustable standing desk. He doesn’t question my expenses. He only asks that I track them. And he legitimizes what I do in ways that matter most. When colleagues ask him what his wife does, he says, plainly, “She is a writer.” He carries my business card in his wallet.
RHP: There’s fair bit of interest, scientific and otherwise, in the links between creativity and insanity. How crazy must someone be to be a good author?
LKS: The idea that writers need to be a little crazy is a tempting one, but I believe it’s more complex. Defining a creative mind is paradoxical, even though it’s a convenient excuse for missed deadlines. It goes beyond stereotypes. Creative people daydream, make their own hours, enjoy solitude, make use of obstacles, seek new experiences, and ask big questions. They watch people, take risks, express themselves, follow their passion, and get out of their own heads by taking on another’s perspective. They view life as an opportunity for self-expression. And, of course, they lose track of time, their phone, and their reading glasses.
My mind has always worked differently. As a child, I could spend hours in imaginative worlds, turning the living room upside down so I walked on the ceiling, or flooding it so I swam from room to room, diving over doorways arches. My mother allowed me to be bored, which, in hindsight, was a bold and maybe risky parenting choice. The good thing was my imagination was always ready to take me somewhere else. So maybe it’s not about being “crazy,” but about having a mind that doesn’t settle easily into the concrete world. It’s a mind that drifts, questions, reimagines. There are real differences between creative and more pragmatic ways of thinking, but neither is better or worse. We need both. One builds the structure; the other imagines what could flourish inside it, even if it loses the blueprint.
RHP: What surprising skills or hobbies do you have?
LKS: I accidentally became an Etsy handbag creator. I started making purses from laminated album covers, which seemed unique enough, until someone asked if I could make a purse from her book. I had no idea if I could but was willing to try. I separated the cover from the text and figured out how to recreate it as a handbag, complete with inside pockets and closures. Before I knew it I was selling book purses online. My Nancy Drew clutches were the biggest sellers, along with Little Women and Alice in Wonderland, complete with handles, straps, buttons or magnet closures. Apparently, I don’t just write stories. I recycle them into accessories.
RHP: How did you learn to tell the truth in your writing?
LKS: Many years ago, my granddaughter and I were coloring horses in a coloring book while we waited for our food at a restaurant. I gave one horse bright pink hooves.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I thought it would look good on her. Wait… I think this is a boy horse,” I said, noticing the anatomy.
“Yeah, it is,” she said, and resumed coloring. It was indeed a male, but her attitude was a refreshing so what? She’d seen more horses in the flesh by age eight than I have in my entire life.
Suddenly I remembered a drawing I made as a child of a highly realistic horse. I was especially proud of one particular male anatomical detail, which, in my enthusiasm for accuracy, may have been slightly overemphasized. Possibly larger than the horse’s head. I made a bold artistic choice. My teacher hung it on the wall. My mother, however, did not share her enthusiasm. After Open House, she came home horrified and told me, “When you draw a horse, don’t ever draw that part.” That was it. No praise, just a rule I didn’t know existed until I broke it. The sting of that moment stuck with me. I shifted from pride to shame over something that I thought was simply truthful. Realistic. That hesitation still exists for many of us, not just in art, but in writing. We hear that quiet, creeping question: Is this okay? Is this too much? Should I tone it down? We start editing not for truth, but for acceptability.
So, when my granddaughter took the cue and gave blue hooves and spots to her horse, I didn’t question her. I said, “Hey! I like it.”
She hadn’t learned yet that truth can make people uncomfortable. As creatives, we need to unlearn that. I’m still working on it.
Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of an award-winning novel, five poetry chapbooks, and a children’s picture book. Linda holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She serves as Honorary Director of Detroit Working Writers and volunteers with Neighborhood House, a community nonprofit. Love and Other Incurable Ailments is her second novel.
