1970s conflicts help spur alumna’s novel about CMU

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Linda Hughes was a student at CMU during what she thinks was an interesting era.
So she wrote about it.
Hughes’s novel, “Homecoming Queen” is set on CMU’s campus and is based on her experiences in 1970 when she was a student and elected homecoming queen.
“Some of the book is based on real life,” she said. “I took what happened to me and I combined characters and situations and condensed time and turned what really happened into fiction,” she said.
The novel focuses on a CMU student named Llayne Robertson during that tumultuous decade where the best lessons of her education are learned outside of the classroom.
In the novel, two opposing forces guide the plot: the Vietnam War and the peace movement. In spite of differences, war veterans and hippies become determined to elect Llayne homecoming queen.
“Alma and Midland were big places to go for getting abortions and giving birth. I combined characters, and everything that happens, happened to people I knew,” she said.
It has been 30 years since Hughes was elected homecoming queen, so she used her journal from the late ’70s, her memory and a total of 20 years to piece the story together.
“This is the first novel I ever started,” she said “I want to make sure people know the book is fiction, because there are a lot of people who might think they know who I’m talking about.”
Hughes graduated from Central in 1971, got married to a “Mount Pleasant boy right out of college,” then returned to CMU and received her master’s degree in counseling in 1978. She received her doctorate degree from the University of Georgia and now resides in Buford, Ga.
Part of her motivation for writing her novel, she said, is that young women are taught to be dependent on their husbands or boyfriends.
“I’m really concerned about how women learn helplessness, and I see it every day, in terms of feeling like they will be complete only when they have a man in their life.
“Like most college girls, I had all these hopes and dreams. I just didn’t have the guts to carry them out, and I really believe I was not given the skills to carry them out,” she said. “I got married and thought ‘This will be it.’”
After her first husband died, Hughes said she became more aware that she needed to develop her skills in order to survive.
“It was really a kick in the butt and a slap in the face that it’s time to grow up.”
Hughes said she wanted to be a writer since she was 10 years old.
“They told me I had to be a teacher, but I knew I was never going to do that,” she said. “I love writing.”
Taking two decades to complete “Homecoming Queen” required Hughes to be patient and determined.
“Sometimes I would think I really got to work on this. Books are like your children. You just feel compelled to do it,” she said.
“When you finish writing, you don’t feel proud or excited, you just feel relief. That describes how I feel.”
Raised to believe she had to be a teacher, Hughes has spent the last 20 years as a motivational speaker and trainer, giving lectures to various corporations across the country.
When she began writing, she focused primarily on motivational work and nonfiction, but her interest in and desire to write fiction continued to grow.
“I had always been writing fiction, then even my journal turned into fiction,” Hughes said.
“Some people say you can’t cross over from nonfiction to fiction,” she said. “I think that’s all bullshit.”
“Homecoming Queen” won an Honorable Mention Award in the 1999 National Writers Association Novel Contest for unpublished work.
Then on July 15, her book was published.
Hughes emphasized that some of the characters in “Homecoming Queen” are based on people she knew and others are complete fiction.
The main character, Llayne, is based on herself when she was in college.
“I made her more fun. I don’t think I was secure enough to have as much fun,” she said.
“There’s a guy named Mack in the book who’s a figment of my imagination and he’s great.”
Hughes has returned to CMU since she graduated and noticed some changes to the campus’s appearance.
“The landscaping is different. One building described in the book is long gone, but Warriner Hall is the same,” she said.
“I just laughed at how styles were way back then,” she said. “I got married in a pair of hot-pink platform shoes.”
“Homecoming Queen” is available at www.amazon.com.