PORTLAND, Maine — As a child in midcoast Maine, Sarah Tomlinson had an unconventional upbringing.
"My parents were part of the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s," Tomlinson said.
With a group of friends, they bought about 100 acres of land on which four of the families built houses. It was not a life of station wagons and tract homes and keeping up with the Joneses.
"At the time, like many kids, I kind of wanted to be like everyone else and so I coveted Wonder Bread," she said with a smile. "But looking back, my mom baked all our bread. We had an organic garden. It was the good life."
Eventually, Tomlinson moved out west and for many years she has lived in Los Angeles, where she has co-written or ghostwritten more than a dozen books. Now, she’s out with her first published novel, "The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers," the story of a ghostwriter who works with a celebrity from the rock 'n' roll world who’s trying to produce a memoir.
Successful ghostwriters learn to subdue their own voices and take on the voices of the people whose stories they’re telling. It’s demanding work, but since ghostwriters’ names often never appear on a book, it provides neither fame nor an ego boost. That’s why it’s so gratifying to Tomlinson to finally be publishing a book that’s hers, all hers.
"It feels amazing—and a little bit emotional, to be honest," she said, noting that she has wanted to be a novelist since she was 16 years old. "It was thirty years before I sold this book. So it’s exciting and it’s kind of unbelievable."