Linda Salisbury references her own life to create The Wild Women of Lake Anna, the award-winning author's fourth book and the first in the Bailey Fish line of young adult novels. Salisbury and her husband live only a mile away from the book's main setting, Lake Anna.

Salisbury bases many of her characters on family and friends. In this 2-minute video, filmed at the 2006 Virginia Festival of the Book, she explains a particularly unique part of her family history that inspired one of the "wild women" of the book’s title.

The Wild Women of Lake Anna is a family affair in other ways, too. Salisbury's son, Christopher Grotke, did the illustrations for the book.