Linda MacKillop's Blog

The first question folks often ask a novelist is about their book’s inspirations. How did you come up with the idea? Is this a true story about you? What inspired the book? Often I tell people a fictional story is a compilation of truth and made up details. I might find a person’s quirk interesting and include them in a work. One of life’s perplexities might have been niggling at my brain for many years, and it ends up in some form in a novel. Often I take a...

I learned something new yesterday. I’ve never heard about Reaction videos on YouTube before. (Thanks, Joel!) My first reaction was to be dumbfounded people spend time watching how others react to their favorite movies or songs. Don’t they just want to watch the video or listen to the song themselves? But then I thought of these videos in light of finishing a novel.

When a novel requires so much time in the shoes of fictional people, learning their mannerisms, foibles, mistakes, fears, embar...

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My name is Eva Gordon, and I may have memory loss, but I can still read. And I’ve read all those harsh words people have used to describe me in that book: cantankerous, hard-edged, stubborn, irascible, unpleasant. At least one person tacked on that the author portrayed me with “grace and care.” Hmph.

Here’s how I see things. There I was, living my life, minding my own business trying to be productive and solitary, working my refinishing business, and then—Bam...

Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash

An excerpt from my article on friendship in The Redbud Post. 

We were in a heavy conversation about career frustrations and disappointment and the way life’s planned path sometimes jumps the rails. My son was expressing pent up feelings about his financial situation and its impact on starting a family with his wife. But during the talk, he suddenly pulled out his phone and scrolled through his pictures to show us one of his friends. After finding what he w...

Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash

An excerpt from my article on friendship in The Redbud Post. 

We were in a heavy conversation about career frustrations and disappointment and the way life’s planned path sometimes jumps the rails. My son was expressing pent up feelings about his financial situation and its impact on starting a family with his wife. But during the talk, he suddenly pulled out his phone and scrolled through his pictures to show us one of his friends. After finding what he w...

I still own the same sewing machine that once belonged to my grandmother and great grandmother. The small black Singer machine assisted me with making childhood clothes, my wedding dress, and curtains hanging today in one of our rooms. In the past, when people saw my machine, they often asked, “Is it a toy?” No, it’s a sentimental gift I inherited from my great-grandmother—an old, small, reliable machine with a lot of miles on its motor that still works—a little like me.

But for the past two de...

Photo by Brian Ho on Unsplash

Several years ago, I was deeply influenced by a biography I read with a friend about German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I am now a lifelong admirer of the man. When I heard about Laura Fabrycky’s new book, The Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus, I knew I needed to read it. And I chose to read and process it with the same friend who read the Bonhoeffer biography with me.

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For those unfamiliar with Bonhoeffer, he was a German pastor, theologian, and double age...

I’ve been quiet during this stay-at-home pandemic season, working out my thoughts, reading many articles and posts written by others. Connecting with people online has been a source of comfort and pleasure, hearing about their experiences, giving and receiving support and encouragement through words and prayer. Until now, I’ve been hesitant to add my own words to the mix. But last week I picked up Marilyn Robinson’s novel Gilead for a re-read and received her words like a wise voice from the pas...

I’m getting to know some new folks these days. I’m feeling them out, watching them in their private moments, wondering why they do what they do. They’re a little hard to read and sometimes they act inconsistently. They change their clothes a lot and make awkward hand gestures over and over. Something unspoken lies beneath their surface, like wounds and anger, but I’m not sure of the cause yet. We’ll have to spend more time together, and I’ll need to see them in a variety of situations that make ...

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” Fyodor Dostoevski

My husband and I go to jail weekly. One night a week we enter a maximum-security facility, get searched and patted down, and led deep into the bowels of the place to be locked in a room with inmates. Once there, we huddle around tables and talk to them about how to parent kids from behind bars and again on the outside once they are free.  We discuss the generational struggles of families trying to build...