Linda Chavez
Linda Chavez
Bio: Linda Chavez has had a long and varied career in American politics that stretches across the political spectrum, both in and out of government. She served as the highest-ranking woman in the Reagan White House, became the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Maryland, and founded a series of public policy organizations focusing on race, ethnicity, and immigration. Before she joined the Reagan administration, she edited the American Educator and American Teacher, publications of the American Federation of Teachers, worked in the Carter Administration’s Office of Management and Budget, served on the professional staff of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate period, and worked at the Democratic National Committee. She also served a four-year term (1992-1996) as the U.S. Expert to the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and as the Chair of the National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992). In 2000, she was honored by the Library of Congress as a Living Legend. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, Commentary Magazine, National Review, and Readers Digest, among others. In 2010, Chavez began writing and publishing fiction. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University in 2012, at the age of 65. Her stories have appeared in Commentary, Red Rock Review and Persimmon Tree. In 2015, her story “The Vigil,” was selected for inclusion in the Silver Pen Writers’ Write Well Award Anthology. Her forthcoming novel The Conversos is the story of her family’s decision to leave Sevilla for the New World in 1597 and is based loosely on an episode of “Finding Your Roots,” which profiled her family’s history. She is the mother of three sons and nine grandchildren. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband Chris Gersten.