Marcus Linden

Marcus covers power tools, lawns, and the hose-and-water side of Garden Care. He lives outside Bendigo on a one-and-a-half acre block, half kitchen garden and half native paddock that he is slowly bringing back from blackberry. Marcus spent twelve years working as a landscaper before he tore his shoulder lifting a flagstone in 2019 and pivoted to writing. He still does occasional consulting for clients he likes — gates, retaining walls, big drip systems for olive groves. He is the divorced father of two teenage sons (Henry, who is finishing a diesel mechanic apprenticeship, and Owen, who wants to be a vet and has fish in every spare jar in the kitchen). Marcus knows two-stroke engines the way some people know songs, can resurface a chainsaw chain in his sleep, and is currently rebuilding a 1986 Victa lawnmower that he insists is better than anything new. He writes in the shed in the mornings and walks the boundary fence with his two border collies, Ginger and Skink, every afternoon. On weekends he plays bass in a covers band that mostly does eighties Australian rock; the band is, in his words, 'two pubs above terrible.' He drinks his coffee black and his beer cold and has firm opinions about tyre pressure on garden carts.