Linda Rochester
Linda Rochester has a Bachelor's Degree (Psychology/Sociology) from West Georgia College (1975) and two Master's Degrees, University of Southern Mississippi (MSW, 1977), University of West Georgia (MA, 2002). She has done Post Graduate work at Southampton Writer's Conference (Memoir, 2004), (Poetry, 2005), and (Novel, 2007); University of Massachusetts Writer's Program (Poetry, 2005); and University of Nebraska Writer's Conference (Memoir, 2004).
She spent thirteen years at the Department of Human Resources in Alabama working as a Social Worker in Jefferson County, Supervisor in Talladega County, and finally, the Director of Clay County Department of Human Resources. She worked on the Adjunct Faculty at Southern Union Junior College teaching Sociology and Ethics and Society for three years, and she was a First-Year Writing Instructor at the University of West Georgia for four years. She was the Vice President then President of the Clay County Arts League from 1994-2002. During that time, she either Directed or Produced the following theatrical productions: South Pacific, Purlie, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, A Tribute to Broadway, Off Broadway, One-Act Festival, A Christmas Carol, The Music Man, Grease, Smoke on the Mountain. She was an instructor of Singing from 1992-5 at Arts Camp. Mrs. Rochester is a soloist. She has sung in several choral groups including the Birmingham Community Chorus, the Talladega Community Chorus, and the Clay County Chorus.
Mrs. Rochester was awarded the Eclectic Award for Best Fiction at the University of West Georgia, and she was selected as Most Outstanding Graduate Student in 2002. She presented scholarly papers at the following Graduate Conferences during the years of 2001-2: Southern Writers, Southern Writing, University of Mississippi. Paper: Flannery O'Connor: Gnostic Nightmare (2001). Robert Penn Warren Circle, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Paper: Friends and Lovers: Jack Burden and Aristotle (2002). Colloquium Presentation: University of West Georgia: Paper: Strange Bedfellows: Wuthering Heights and Early Gnosticism (2002). Southern Writers, Southern Writing: Fiction: Seeing Double (2002).
Mrs. Rochester has served on many boards in the past including the Cheaha Mental Health Board, the First United Methodist Church Board, and the Clay County Arts League Board. She currently serves on the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
The most recent project that she has authored is a drama appreciation program that has been piloted in a local private school, First Assembly Christian School. The program,Arguing the Arts, targets the Fifth and Ninth and Tenth grade students. Students are shown a scene from a movie; they discuss the film with a facilitator and write about what they have seen. The benefits to the students include learning to evaluate and recognize theatrical terms, techniques, and activities, learning to critically think about what they have seen, and learning to argue in writing about the meaning of the clip. This program has been funded by the State Arts Council and by the Martha Christine White Foundation. In 2009-10, plans are being made to take the program into two other county schools.
She says of her life: "I have had a busy and productive life that has not been without struggle at every turn. A saving grace has been all the lessons learned from my social work career. Whatever else I might be or accomplish, I am at heart a social worker. I have always known that I am no better than anyone else, and that whatever difficulties I am facing, other people suffer in the same ways. That fact has helped me move from situation to situation without the unnecessary baggage of excess pride. Also, I have not been afraid to take a tumble or two along the way. As a writer, I am first and foremost a southern writer. I write about family, place, church, race, and all those themes that southern writers have traditionally covered, but I also write about change and the relatively new attempt by society's institutions to alter our collective fate. These attempts have been met with opposition from many of our older institutions. The difficulties of writing about social problems and change when you are an active participant in the problem as well as the story makes for a strange narration: the narrator always knows more than she is willing to admit. Also, a wise narrator must admit complicity with all the problems otherwise there wouldn't be any problems that she hadn't confronted. There is no moral hiding place when that is the case."
Personal: Mrs. Rochester is married to her childhood sweetheart, Circuit Judge John Rochester. She says of her husband, "Johnny is an odd case of polar opposites in the Courtroom, as well as in life. He tries to give a lot of first chances and he tries everything to head off problems. In that way, he could be considered liberal. But he is a tough judge, and a conservative, in sentencing those who continue to fail to learn from their mistakes. He, like me, has been disappointed in the increase in crime and our inability to curb that increase. He truly cares about every life that he influences, and feels the failure when people do not succeed. He was one of the first to see the drug culture coming, and he has done everything he could to spare those he has influence over a life that is far worse than prison."
"The happiness of my daughter Katie and son Alex is the thing I most work and hope for. Both of them are wonderful people that I greatly love."
