Mark Linkiewicz
About Mark Linkiewicz
Mark Linkiewicz was born and raised in Lorain, Ohio. After enduring Catholic grade school in the 1960s, he attended high school in Amherst, Ohio, graduating in 1973. He studied art at Kent State University before the money ran out, then graduated from nursing school in 1977.
His 45-year nursing career took him through eight hospitals in three states and a wide range of experiences before retiring in 2022. In 2001 he moved to New England, spending a year in Vermont before settling in New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife, Astrid.
Published Books
Merrily Farm
Tucked into the wooded hills of New Hampshire's north country, Sugar Bush Knolls is the kind of town you drive through without noticing — unless you're lost, very hungry, or in need of a good story. At its heart sits Merrily Farm and Rescue, five hundred wild acres tended by Dr. Merilee Grace Anderson: veterinarian, sanctuary keeper, and the most quietly formidable woman in the county. Her barnyard is home to an unlikely fellowship — a philosophically inclined hog named Curtis, an adventurous Nubian goat named Dolly, a self-important turkey named Tomas, two wisecracking Bronx crows, a clan of surprisingly civic-minded rats, and a rotating cast of rescued souls — all of whom, it turns out, have rather a lot to say.Into this peaceable kingdom strides Percy Flanders, the town's one genuine rotten egg: a bitter, petty man nursing old wounds and nursing newer ones by making himself the Knolls' most reliable source of aggravation. When Percy's resentment of Merilee and her animals crosses a dangerous line, the barnyard must rally — and what follows is a rescue mission of surprising heart, cunning, and even a pair of catamounts with a debt to repay.Merrily Farm is a fable in the classic tradition, layered with humor, loyalty, and the quietly radical idea that a community — human or otherwise — is only as strong as its willingness to show up for one another. It is also, unmistakably, a love story: between a woman and her land, between neighbors who choose each other, and between two people who keep meeting over a runaway goat until they finally admit what everyone else already knows.Rich with the textures of New England rural life, alive with memorable characters both two-legged and four, and suffused with an earned warmth that never tips into sentimentality, Merrily Farm is a story about belonging, redemption, and the stubborn, joyful persistence of community — told with a wink, a tear, and more than one well-timed bleat.