I tap into my skills as a journalist and storyteller to celebrate culture and to help others create and preserve legacy.

Linda Jones is a contributing writer at Heirloom Digital and an award-winning journalist. As a consultant, Linda creates content, edits and conducts writing workshops. Her specialties are storytelling, legacy preservation, cultural heritage, emotional intelligence, grief recovery, trauma therapy and wellness.

During her newspaper career, Linda was a staff writer at several major and midsized daily newspapers, including the Dallas Morning News, Detroit News, Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, Miami News and has contributed to The Daily Beast, US News & World Report, USA Today/USA Weekend, Newsday, People, Heart & Soul, Essence, Africa News and Black Enterprise. Her career highlights include traveling to Israel to write a series on the expatriate African American community of black Hebrew Israelites; going to South Africa to cover the historic 1994 election of its first black president, Nelson Mandela, and covering his 10-city tour of the U.S. when he was released from 27 years in prison; blogging for the documentary team that covered the D.C.-based Random Acts Foundation’s charitable giving tour in South Africa, Swaziland and Senegal; and covering the Detroit funeral of David Ruffin, lead singer of The Temptations.

As a writing coach, Linda has taught developmental and creative writing as an adjunct instructor at community colleges in Dallas and Collin County. She has also taught creative and expressive writing for public schools, community colleges, nonprofits, entrepreneurs and faith-based and spiritual centers in Dallas and other cities. Some of her past clients include The Family Place, bcWorkshop Dallas, HeartSpace Spiritual Center, Center for Spiritual Living, Dallas, Friendship West Baptist Church and the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute at Vanderbilt University, Visiting Nurse Association.

Linda is also the founder of A Nappy Hair Affair, Inc., an initiative that promotes black heritage. She is the author of several books: Family Scribes: Writing Memories for Your Family Tree, Final Story Obituary Planner, It’s Only Temporary: A Journal for Surviving Loved Ones, and Nappyisms: Affirmations for Nappy-Headed People and Wannabes!  She is also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul, and Tenderheaded: A Comb-bending Collection of Hair Stories.

Linda has received writing awards from the Florida Medical Association, Gannet, the Association of Women Journalists and The Writer’s Block. Her news coverage of communities of color earned Linda multiple fellowships at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and inclusion on the speaker’s bureau of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. A native of Akron, Ohio, Linda resides in Dallas, Texas. In her alleged spare time Linda occasionally sits in on African drum circles and spits verse at open mic sets.