About Linda

Linda Petrucelli is an American writer whose essays have earned Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. Known for her minimalist style and lyric, clear-eyed voice, her work has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. Her flash fiction story, “Figure Eight on the Waves,” won first place in the WOW! Women on Writing Fall 2018 Contest, and her essay “Countdown” placed runner-up in the Santa Clara Review’s Fall 2021 Flash Non-fiction Contest. She was also a 2022 finalist for the Bellingham Review’s Annie Dillard CNF Prize.

Linda has spent most of her adult life on islands—Taiwan, Manhattan, and now the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Being near the ocean suits her; she loves walking the beach, picking up whatever the tide offers, and writing on the lanai of the tin-roofed rancher she shares with her artist husband, Gary Hoff. Their home overlooks the ʻAlenuihāhā Channel, a famously wild stretch of Pacific in North Kohala.

Her debut memoir, Mother Tongue: A Taiwan Memoir of Language, Culture, and Faith, is a travel-lover’s passport back to Taiwan in 1984, where she served as a missionary with the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan during the final years of martial law. The book blends humor, heart, and cultural insight as it follows her journey into the island’s politically suppressed mother tongue and the grassroots push—fueled in part by Christian activists—toward democracy. Mother Tongue will be published by Koehler Books on June 9, 2026.

In 2025, Linda also took on the NovNov writing challenge, completing a full 50,000-word cozy mystery in just thirty days.