Love and Other Incurable Ailments

Serenity Tomczyk is in her thirties and works in her aunt’s Michigan décor shop, but in her free time she agonizes about her health and possible demise. She’s depressed, trying to figure things out in group therapy, and yearns for the love she never got when her parents were alive. Then she finds a box of passionate letters in the dumpster. She fantasizes about meeting the bereft lover who wrote the letters and suddenly picks up her life to move to where he lives: Ocracoke Island, North Carolina. When she finds the letter writer, he isn’t what she imagined, but she makes new friends and starts to enjoy island life. Then it all nearly unravels, and Serenity must decide if running away or standing firm is the best way to move forward. Love and Other Incurable Ailments (Regal House 2026) is a charming novel about resilience, friendship, and finding your place in the world.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is an author and artist whose work blends humor, heart, and the quieter struggles we often keep to ourselves. Her stories reflect a deep understanding of how anxiety, grief, and community shape our lives. She grew up south of Cleveland, Ohio, scribbling stories in the margins of books before she even knew the alphabet. A scholarship student at Cooper School of Art, she spent many years working in graphic arts before turning her focus to writing. Her short stories, poetry, and art have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Prairie Schooner; Clackamas Literary Review; Paterson Review; New Ohio Review; Dunes Review; Spoon River Poetry Review; Permafrost; CALYX, Rattle; The MacGuffin ; A Twist of Noir; and Idol Talk: Women Writers on the Teenage Infatuation that Changed Their Lives.

Her essays on writing have been published in Women Writers, Women’s Books; The Feminine Collective; Jane Friedman; Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Detroit Working Writers. Her debut novel, In the Context of Love, was a finalist for multiple awards, including the Hoffer Award and Sarton Women’s Fiction Award. Other awards include a Heartland poetry chapbook award and a Pushcart Prize Nomination. She has published five poetry chapbooks and a children’s picture book which she wrote and illustrated.  

Linda holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, serves as Honorary Director of Detroit Working Writers, and is a member of Authors’ Guild, Poetry Society of Michigan, Michigan Writers, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association. Over the years she has worked in graphics arts, founded an adult ADHD support group, taught calligraphy, participated in pet therapy with her chocolate Lab, and worked as a picture framing designer trained in conservation. She volunteers for Neighborhood House, a non-profit, and lives in southeast Michigan with her husband and their corgi, Cowboy, who aspires to be a champion agility dog, if only he could learn not to pee in the ring.