She won an Illinois Arts Council award for this topical young adult novel, Brave New Wanda. She's also taught on the faculties of Baylor University, Texas Tech University, Columbia College Chicago, and Austin Peay State University. News and World Report, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge tells the great adventure story of 17-year-old Woodrow Wilson Nickel, who drives two giraffes cross-country in 1938 America, finding himself along the way through the joys and conflicts of the voyage. Lynda Rutledge Author Biography Lynda Rutledge, a lifelong animal lover, has had the joy of petting baby rhinos, snorkeling with endangered turtles, and strolling with a tower of giraffes in her eclectic freelance career writing nonfiction for well-known publications and organizations while winning awards and residencies for her fiction. Her articles have appeared coast to coast in major newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Houston Post and the San Diego Union-Tribune, and her nonfiction books have been reviewed in The Washington Post, U.S. She was inspired to write this young adult novel after researching the world of donor insemination for a series on the subject of the human side of 'reprotech.' While conducting research in the archives of the San Diego Zoo, Rutledge came across a trove of newspaper articles about two giraffes that had survived a hurricane on. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. West with Giraffes is Austin writer Lynda Rutledge ’s second novel, preceded by Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale, winner of a 2013 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award. Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away.

Lynda Rutledge has been a junior high teacher, a copywriter, a journalist, a book club director, and, once upon a time, a 13-year-old. 'Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes. On the last day of the millennium, sassy Faith Bass Darling, the richest old lady in Bass, Texas, decides to have a garage sale.

Author lynda rutledge