Travel across the world today with author Linda Petrucelli and her memoir Mother Tongue: A Memoir of Taiwan. Enjoy today's author interview and a sneak peek at a memoir of her time as a clergyperson in Taiwan in the 1980s.
For more information about reviewing this book contact jodiwebb9@gmail.com or sign up at
About the Book
Standing by the window, I tried to understand what happened to me to take such an unfathomable leap… What I hadn’t realized was that first, my one and only assignment would be to learn the language.”
In 1984, when Linda Petrucelli arrives in Taiwan with her husband Gary Hoff, she assumes she will learn Mandarin Chinese. Instead, her local church partner, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, assigns her to learn Taiwanese, an eight-toned ancient tongue that few Westerners ever attempt. What began as a daunting assignment turns into a transformative journey of faith, identity, and resilience. Set during the world’s longest period of martial law, Mother Tongue offers candid insight into Taiwan’s nonviolent struggle toward democracy, the political power of language, and the universal search for belonging. In her odyssey to communicate in the island’s mother tongue, Linda learns the political implications of language, insight into her own ethnic identity, and the value of finding humor in her mistakes.
Publisher: Koehler Books
ISBN-13: 979-8897471195
ASIN: B0GNCKK6QV
Print length: 178 pages
Genre: Memoir
We're also inviting readers to participate in our Reader Review event. You can sign up by emailing: jodiwebb9@gmail.com and she will get you a copy of the book! You don't need to be a blogger to join in on this event; anyone who can leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon can participate and receive an ebook copy of Mother Tongue. By leaving a review, you'll also be entered in a drawing to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card!
Mother Tongue: A Memoir of Taiwan is available in print and as an ebook at Amazon, BooksaMillion and Barnes & Noble. Add it to your Goodreads list.
About the Author
Linda Petrucelli’s creative nonfiction essays have earned Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, and her fiction accolades include first place in the Women on Writing Fall 2018 Flash Fiction Contest. An ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, Linda holds degrees from Yale Divinity School and Chicago Theological Seminary. For ten years, she served as a missionary in
Taiwan, becoming fluent in the Taiwanese language. Her wide-ranging ministerial service includes work as a humanitarian relief executive in New York City and pastorates in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and on the Big Island of Hawaii. She now resides in Hawi, Hawaii, with her artist husband, Gary Hoff, and writes on the lanai of their tin-roofed rancher overlooking the
ʼAlenuihāhā Channel.
Connect with the author
Website: http://lindapetrucelli.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindaSPetrucelli/
IG: @linda.petrucelli
--Interview by Jodi M. Webb
WOW: Tell us a little about how you began writing.
Linda: I’ve kept a journal much of my life as a way to sort through my feelings, but writing played a significant role in my professional life, too. I've been an ordained minister and for much of my career each week I wrote a flash CNF essay, aka “a sermon,” and delivered it live before a congregation. From time to time during my ministerial years, I published nonfiction articles that leaned toward journalism, including one about capital punishment in Taiwan that appeared in The Christian Century.
After I retired, I finally had the time to dedicate myself to the craft of writing and to enjoy a consistent practice. I started by taking online classes, many of them WOW! offerings, joined our local writer’s guild, and began reading lit mags and memoirs. My first efforts were short form prose—flash fiction and personal essays.
WOW: So how did you go from flash fiction to a memoir focused on your time in Taiwan?
Linda: Current events got me thinking. How, in my opinion, Taiwan and the US had reversed roles over the last several decades. I am concerned about what I see as authoritarian tendencies infiltrating our national life. Book banning; disruption in transferring power; curbs to freedom of expression. These were the tactics of Taiwan’s one-party dictatorship in the 80s when I lived there. How ironic, I thought, that Taiwan has made incredible strides toward democracy in the shadow of China, slowly overcoming its authoritarian history, while my own country has moved in the opposite direction. I wanted to tell my story against the backdrop of Taiwan’s resistance and resilience as a hopeful reminder that courageous individuals can change oppressive systems.
WOW: It's amazing to see our current world through the lens of your experiences decades ago. How did you write Mother Tongue? Did you have journals or other written works
to draw from or was it all from your memory?
Linda: I had made several attempts at writing a memoir but I never finished any of them. Finally admitting that I was a “Plotter” not a “Pantser,” I drafted a three-act structure using a list of detailed scenes. The outline periodically shifted and rearranged itself but it helped me when I felt lost or overwhelmed trying to get the story down. I committed to 500 words a day for four months. The first draft was pretty awful but not beyond saving and I went on to edit the manuscript over a period of nearly two years. I actually wrote the last chapter first, in hopes that the preceding chapters would move toward and culminate in that final scene.
For background material, since it happened so long ago, I utilized journals and letters I had written to my father. I also was lucky to have my husband Gary who was with me in Taiwan as a sounding board. His recollections were indispensable, as well as the extensive photo collection we had assembled. Towards the end of the second draft, I contacted some of my Taiwanese colleagues with a few questions. I even got some information I didn’t expect… After I messaged Lim Bi-iong, one of the Taiwanese women who appear in my book, she sent me declassified government surveillance records on my activity at the Fishermen’s Service Center where I had worked!
WOW: You write about the difficulty of learning to speak Taiwanese. Was it difficult to capture the sound of the Taiwanese language in your writing?
Linda: That is a super insightful question, Jodi!
Of course, I used the romanization system I had learned to show the language I was speaking, but to evoke the sound is another thing altogether. As a writer, I think sound is one of the more challenging senses to describe. So, I got a lot of practice writing this book!
During my research, I discovered a journal written back when I was studying Taiwanese where I wrote about “laughing in eight tones.” This memory inspired the scene where I am practicing saying “HA” using eight different intonations. Later in the scene, where I am practicing saying MA, you’ll find my favorite line in the book:
“Eighth tone: MA (high and stopped). I forced a soprano glottal stop and squeaked. It was the same tone of my surname in Taiwanese. Not the gently modulated “Bai” of Mandarin, but mousespeak. Peh!”
WOW: I often find that the memoirs I read change my outlook on life. What do you hope readers will take away from Mother Tongue?
Linda: Life and learning are better with laughter!
WOW: Isn't everything! What’s up next for your writing career?
Linda: I continue to take online classes and keep practicing, word by word. I participated in
Novnov last year and wrote a 50K-word cozy mystery in a month. This kind of writer’s marathon had been an item on my literary bucket list for a while. I’d like to see, with a few months of hindsight now, what I might do with that “vomit draft.” I’m hoping to explore chapbooks, too. Maybe compose several short-short collections around the theme of ‘belonging’ and my spiritual experiences with nature in Hawaii.
WOW: You sound super busy with so many different possibilities. Personally, I would love to read about the connections you've made during your time in Hawaii.
Join the Reader Review Event
Readers, if you'd like to receive a copy of Mother Tongue by Linda Petrucelli for review, please email jodiwebb9@gmail.com or signup at https://forms.gle/LhLatdbbS8i6cuBT9 . Book reviews need to be posted by on Goodreads (required) and one other bookseller online site. We'll be sharing all the reviews in a Reader Review Event and Giveaway post here on The Muffin on June 15! In addition to receiving the book, you'll also be entered to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card!
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