Gross, Linden

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Gail Ross, Lichtman, Tristman, Singer, & Ross, 1666 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20009. E-mail—linden@lindengross. com.

CAREER:

Author, publisher, editor, writing coach, and activist. Founder, Incubation Press (print-on-demand publishing house); founder, Stalking Survivor's Sanctuary & Solutions (nonprofit organization); creator and writer of Stalking Victims' Sanctuary; serves as advocate for stalking victims and safety professionals; appears on television talk shows.

WRITINGS:

To Have or to Harm, Warner (New York, NY), 1994, revised and expanded edition published as Surviving a Stalker: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Yourself Safe, foreword by Gavin de Becker, Marlow (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Jay Bakker) Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows (autobiography), HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 2001.

(With Peggy Drexler) Raising Boys without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men, Rodale (Emmaus, PA), 2005.

Also ghost writer of books, including The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia Butterfly Hill; and It Pays to Talk by Charles Schwab and Carrie Schwab Pomerantz. Contributor to periodicals, including Cosmopolitan, Ms., Reader's Digest, Self, Redbook, Parents, TV Guide, and Conceive. Former special features editor, Los Angeles Times Magazine; associate editor, Ladies' Home Journal. Former author of bimonthly column for Woman's Own magazine.

ADAPTATIONS:

Son of a Preacher Man was adapted as an audiobook.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author and magazine journalist Linden Gross is a nonfiction writer whose works center on stalking victims and effective methods for coping with, and ultimately removing, the terrifying presence of a stalker in their lives. She is the author of To Have or to Harm, which was the first book written about the stalking of ordinary people, and Surviving a Stalker: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Yourself Safe, a detailed instructional work for average people who find themselves the center of a stalker's unwanted attention, as well as for professionals who deal with the crime. She is the creator of many nonfiction pamphlets, information sheets, and other resources for stalking victims, as well. Gross founded the nonprofit organization Stalking Survivors' Sanctuary & Solutions and created its online resource Web site; she also frequently serves as a guest on television and radio programs. A professional communicator and educator, Gross serves as a writing coach and book doctor who works with aspiring writers to help edit and shape their works for publication. She is a ghostwriter and a regular collaborator with other writers and notable personalities—she was, for example, the ghostwriter for environmentalist Julia Butterfly Hill's The Legacy of Luna.

In Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows, Gross collaborated with Jay Bakker, son of disgraced televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, in the telling of his side of the story of the rise and fall of his father's highly popular but fatally flawed ministry. An adolescent during the time of the scandal in 1987, Jay Bakker struggled to understand what was going on around him, and why his parents were the target of investigators, journalists, other evangelists, and even comedians. Bakker describes in detail his own transformation following the scandal, from chubby innocent to teen alcoholic to a wiry, tattooed street preacher, ministering to the disenfranchised, disadvantaged, and disillusioned in inner-city Atlanta. "Bakker's obvious affection for his folks here softens and humanizes their freakish media image until Jim and Tammy Faye become just two more beset, dysfunctional, yet oddly touching and familiar American parents," commented Bob Massey in Sojourners. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that Bakker's memoir "inspires, captivates and entertains."

Gross also collaborated with Cornell University professor and gender scholar Peggy Drexler in Raising Boys without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men. Drexler and Gross address the concept that "boys raised by women without men are actually better off than boys raised by mothers and fathers," commented reviewer Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic Monthly. Drexler suggests that it is not the number or gender of a child's parents that have the most influence on how the child will turn out, but rather the parent's economic status. She notes that "maverick moms"—lesbians and single mothers by choice—are often more affluent and better educated than average, leading to the conclusion that children raised by these dedicated mothers are more likely to avoid legal entanglements, emotional troubles, and educational underachievement. "This essential truth trumps almost all arguments against gay and single-by-choice parenthood," Flanagan stated. "What's left are religious objections and distaste for a lifestyle, and those are hardly the basis for public policy." Library Journal contributor Maryse Breton reported that the authors feel that women who choose to raise their sons alone "are breeding a new kind of adult man sensible to family values and open to differences."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlantic Monthly, November, 2005, Caitlin Flanagan, "Boys Will Be Boys: The Latest in the Ever Growing Field of ‘You Go, Girl!’ Studies," review of Raising Boys without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men, p. 161.

Christianity Today, January 8, 2001, Douglas LeBlanc, review of Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows, p. 87.

Library Journal, January 1, 2001, George Westerlund, review of Son of a Preacher Man, p. 113; July 1, 2005, Maryse Breton, review of Raising Boys without Men, p. 113.

People, February 19, 2001, "Pages," review of Son of a Preacher Man, p. 43.

Publishers Weekly, January 15, 2001, review of Son of a Preacher Man, p. 68.

Report Newsmagazine, March 5, 2001, Joe Woodard, "Ideal for Public Slaughter: The Son of Two Infamous Televangelists Ponders the Hatred against His Parents," review of Son of a Preacher Man.

Sojourners, September, 2001, Bob Massey, review of Son of a Preacher Man, p. 55.

ONLINE

Linden Gross Home Page,http://www.lindengross.com (July 14, 2006).

Stalking Victims' Sanctuary Web site,http://www.stalkingvictims.com (July 14, 2006).