Author

The author Tamara Linse has published five books, journalism, essays, academic projects, and more. Her purpose is to translate the real world into the symbolic, whether that’s through writing, coding, art, or photography.

Tamara Linse (credit: Ted Brummond)
Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Reading at Tin House Writers Conference, Oregon, 2009
In the crowd at Writers in Paradise, Florida, 2008
Luis Alberto Urrea's Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, 2011
Tamara Linse
Writers Institute, with Steve Almond, Florida, 2009
Reading at Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference, Colorado, 2010
Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Tin House Writers Workshop, with Whitney Otto, Portland, 2007
Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Reading at Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Tamara Linse
Tin House Writers Conference, Oregon, 2009
Writers Institute, Florida, 2009
Jim Shepard's Workshop, Tin House Writers Conference, Oregon, 2009
Dinner with Dr. Peter Parolin and friends, Wyoming, 2012
Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Vermont, 2011
Tamara Linse

Raised on a ranch in northern Wyoming, she broke her collarbone when she was three, her leg when she was four, a horse when she was twelve, and her heart ever since. She’s also a science geek, and she’s still going through a space phase.

Tamara earned her bachelor’s and master’s in English and her bachelor’s in computer science from the University of Wyoming. She is currently working on her master’s in computer science. While working toward her master's, she taught literature and writing, and she now works as a writer, editor, and front-end dev for a university nonprofit as well as a freelancer.

Her fiction has appeared in the Georgetown Review, South Dakota Review, and Talking River, among others. Her journalism has appeared in the National Endowment for the Humanities HUMANITIES magazine, the Casper Star-Tribune, and the Billings Gazette, among others. She was a finalist for an Arts & Letters and Glimmer Train contests for short stories and the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prize for a book of short stories. Her short story collection How to Be a Man earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and her sci fi novel The Language of Corpses received a starred review from Kirkus.

Science Fiction

The Language of Corpses

The Language of Corpses

Mechalum Space Series

"A powerful launch to a fresh SF series that promises a wealth of ingenious concepts" — Kirkus Starred Review

The year is 2728, and instantaneous travel is possible by gating from one body to another on any of 300 human-inhabited worlds. On Cecrops, Jazari wants to escape her boss, a crime lord, and figure out why she’s always heard voices in her head. On Corvus, Eala is a scientist studying the mammal-like taktak who wants to understand their telepathic abilities. In the outer reaches of the Sol system, ZD777 wakes from cryo, alone on a frozen asteroid that is about to explode. Chance throws them together, and they have to figure out not only how to save themselves but also a mystery with implications for the future of humankind. Readers of Ann Leckie and James S.A. Corey will enjoy this character-based space opera.

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Literary Fiction

How to Be a Man

How to Be a Man

Short Story Collection

“In this winning debut collection of short stories, Linse presents a vivid portrait of life in the American West. Readers will be drawn in to the collection's world and will find themselves wanting to read more of Linse’s intimate tales.” — Publishers Weekly Starred Review

“Never acknowledge the fact that you’re a girl, and take pride when your guy friends say, ‘You’re one of the guys.’ Tell yourself, ‘I am one of the guys,’ even though, in the back of your mind, a little voice says, ‘But you’ve got girl parts.’ ” A girl whose self-worth revolves around masculinity, a bartender who loses her sense of safety, a woman who compares men to plants, and a boy who shoots his cranked-out father. These are a few of the hard-scrabble characters in Tamara Linse’s debut short story collection, How to Be a Man. Set in contemporary Wyoming—the myth of the West taking its toll—these stories reveal the lives of tough-minded girls and boys, self-reliant women and men, struggling to break out of their lonely lives and the emotional havoc of their families to make a connection, to build a life despite the odds. How to Be a Man falls within the tradition of Maile Meloy, Tom McGuane, and Annie Proulx.

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Earth's Imagined Corners

Earth's Imagined Corners

Historical Fiction

“Linse’s gift for fiction lies in her seemingly offhand but richly engaging observations. Linse makes each journey relatable and emotionally textured while occasionally injecting her signature literary observations.” — IndieReader

In 1885 Iowa, Sara Moore is a dutiful daughter, but when her father tries to force her to marry his younger partner, she must choose between the partner—a man who treats her like property—and James Youngblood—a kind man she hardly knows who has a troubled past. When she confronts her father, he beats her and turns her out of the house, breaking all ties, so she decides to elope with James to Kansas City with hardly a penny to their names. In the tradition of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Earth’s Imagined Corners is a novel that comprehends the great kindnesses and violences we do to each other.

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Deep Down Things

Deep Down Things

Contemporary Fiction

“Linse writes as if flexing her own ranch-toned muscles, creating intense original characters and letting them loose. The result could fill a novel—or two. All bodes well for Linse’s future work.” — Kirkus

Deep Down Things is the emotionally riveting story of three siblings torn apart by a charismatic bullrider-turned-writer and the love that triumphs despite tragedy. From the death of her parents at sixteen, Maggie Jordan yearns for lost family, while sister CJ drowns in alcohol and brother Tibs withdraws. When Maggie and an idealistic young writer named Jackdaw fall in love, she is certain that she’s found what she’s looking for. As she helps him write a novel, she gets pregnant, and they marry. But after Maggie gives birth to a darling boy, Jes, she struggles to cope with Jes’s severe birth defect, while Jackdaw struggles to overcome writer’s block brought on by memories of his abusive father. Ambitious, but never seeming so, Deep Down Things may remind you of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong and Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.

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Moreau

Moreau

YA, Wyoming Chronicles

“Linse’s wide array of believable characters and her ability to return to the same set of themes without becoming repetitive or predicative makes her a notable literary force. A notable debut from a very promising writer.” — IndieReader

Eli wants more than anything to be a research scientist, and so he volunteers to help friends survey wild horses in Hole-in-the-Wall country. Their helicopter crashes, and Eli is the only survivor. He almost freezes to death before being picked up by a strange supertall girl named Sam and taken to a weird underground medical facility. He knows things aren’t all what they seem when he discovers a woman with huge glossy wings in a closed lab. Does the director, Dr. Moreau, really want Eli to help him with research? Or does the doctor have other plans? Readers of Scott Westerfield and Danielle Paige will love this mashup of H.G. Wells’s classic The Island of Dr. Moreau.

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Pride

Pride

YA, Wyoming Chronicles

“Linse makes each journey relatable and emotionally textured while occasionally injecting her signature literary observations.” — IndieReader

Elizabeth has three problems. One, her older sister Jenna is the kindest person in the world, which wouldn't be a problem if, two, there wasn't a new guy in town, Charlie, with his eye on Jenna. He's one of the summer people who tend to swoop in, have a fling, and then disappear. Three, Charlie's got a snooty friend, D'Arcy, who may or may not have the hots for Elizabeth. And you might as well count four, another hot guy, Teo, likes her too, but Teo and D'Arcy go way back, and they hate each other. All three guys drop off the map, and Elizabeth is left to console her sister and figure out what happened. Readers of John Green and Rainbow Rowell will love this mashup of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice.

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Short Stories

The following stories except the last are available in the collection How to Be a Man.

Nonfiction

Essays

Selected Journalism

Academic Publications