About Mindie Burgoyne
author, editor, composer

Mindie Burgoyne, a native Marylander lived most of her life between Baltimore and Washington DC, but moved to Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore seven years ago.

She was first published at age 16 when she was contracted to compose a musical score for a 20 minute feature film promoting Bellingrath Gardens in Mobile, Alabama. Music from that score was featured on NBC’s The Today Show and also used in the America Junior Miss pageants.

As a trained musician, Mindie spent twenty years serving as a Music Director in several Maryland churches prior to her move to the Eastern Shore. Her involvement as a choir director in church ministry inspired her to compose liturgical music, and to begin freelance writing about pastoral ministry, spirituality, travel and business.

Pastoral music was a second job for Mindie, as she spent 15 years in direct sales moving from sales rep to owning a direct selling franchise and operating a warehousing / distribution facility in Beltsville, MD.  It was all about Tupperware.  At age 19, Mindie began a career as a Tupperware lady doing home parties and soon navigated the ranks becoming a top sales manager in the nation - recruiting, training and motivating sales reps, and finally serving as a Tupperware distributor responsible for training and motivating over 300 sales reps, 40 sales managers and a running an office and warehouse staff.  She operated the distributorship from 1988-1995.

In 1994, Mindie started a publishing company – Trinity Music, Inc. - that published liturgical music, primarily for the Catholic Church. In 1995 her company purchased the assets of The Pastoral Press, a Washington, DC book publishing house that published theological and scholarly texts.

Once Trinity Music and The Pastoral Press were merged, Mindie Burgoyne became the only woman publisher of a sizable Catholic publishing house in the United States. As publisher she led an effort to get ten out of print top sellers back in the market, and then moved on to acquire new works from notable U. S. theological scholars. The publishing house expanded from U.S. markets into Europe, Asia and Africa. Mindie later sold the company to Oregon Catholic Press (OCP), who has continued to grow and expand the company and become a world leader in Catholic publishing.

After selling the publishing company, Mindie continued to work as a freelance writer and business consultant before moving to the Eastern Shore in 2002. In 2006 she wrote Snow Hill: Images of America, a book charting the history of a small town in Maryland, for Arcadia Publishing. In 2007 she wrote a second book for Arcadia entitled Easton, Then and Now.

In 2007, Mindie served as an advisor to National Geographic Television Network for an episode of Is it Real? The episode was based on an article she wrote about a haunted house in Snow Hill, MD.

Her writing has been published in Music News, Metropolitan Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, Edible Chesapeake, Coastal Living, Suite 101.com, the Daily Times, the Star Democrat, the Worcester County Messenger, the Somerset Herald, and Clever Magazine. She has discussed her writing on local television and radio, and Internet radio stations, the The Edge - a national radio and television station focusing unexplained, and most recently on 2BoomerBabes radio broadcasting out of Easton, MD.

In 2009, Mindie wrote Haunted Eastern Shore: Ghostly Tales from East of the Chesapeake, published by History Press and released for sale on October 1st.  The book sold out its first printing in six weeks and continues to sell well having a facebook fan page with over 2200 fans.

2009 was also the year that Mindie resurrected her speaking platform launching it with heavy use of social media.  She now gives presentations on how to use social media networks to grow a business and has adapted her presentations to fit various business types including writers, retailers, travel consultants and public relations professionals.  Additionally she gives talks on touring haunted and mystical sites and serves as tour guide for many "on-site" talks.

After Mindie moved to Maryland's Eastern Shore she took a full time job with the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development serving businesses and local governments in Maryland's rural areas. Her work includes business assistance and aid to local jurisdictions including help with heritage tourism, destination marketing and community development. In her free time, she is still writing, speaking and traveling.