Linda Niemann

I write literary memoir, folklore, and nonfiction stories mostly about the twenty years I spent working as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific Railroad in the southwest. I have three books published on this subject, Boomer: Railroad Memoirs from the University of California Press, Railroad Voices, from Stanford University Press, and Railroad Noir from Indiana University Press. I also write travel literature; my latest publication is Cosas: Folk Art Travels in Mexico from the University of New Mexico Press. Learning Spanish in Oaxaca, Mexico twenty years ago was a life changing event for me and opened the door to study the southwest, where I was born, in a new way. Fred Gamst, the railroad sociologist recently told me I have the soul of an ethnologist and I think that is true. Working people’s stories fascinate me and I see myself helping those stories get into print, as well as my own. In two books I have collaborated with fine art photographers Lina Bertucci (Railroad Voices) and Joel Jensen (Railroad Noir). I am interested in the interplay between image and story. The photographs do not illustrate the text but comprise their own parallel essay. The reader is drawn into a visual world while hearing the author’s voice.