Many of you may already know Linda Hoffman Kimball from her work as a columnist at beliefnet.com and for Exponent II. Or from her novels (Home to Roost and The Marketing of Sister B). Or perhaps from the essay collection she edited, Saints Well-Seasoned: Musings on How Food Nourishes Us — Body, Heart and Soul. Her latest work is Chocolate Chips & Charity: Visiting Teaching in the Real World, which has already cracked Cedar Fort’s Bestseller List even though it just came out in January.
I first met Linda in the Hyde Park Ward on the South Side of Chicago, where she, her husband (Chris) and three children were the backbone of a very transient ward. Like me Linda was baptized into the Church during college (Wellesley College), having been raised a devout Methodist. After Wellesley, she earned an MFA from Boston University, where her thesis was on Art as Propaganda in Nazi Germany. She now lives in Evanston, Illinois, but she also considers Boston “home.” Welcome, Linda!
Hi Linda!! How great that you’re here. Just last month, I passed the beautiful wooden rattle you gave my oldest son along to a new cousin, and wondered when I might see you again–and now here you are! I always look forward to seeing your thoughts in print; how nice to have regular doses for a little while!
Welcome to a fellow Wellesley alum!
Hi LInda,
Linda! Thank you for writing, no compiling that book about visiting teaching. I’m the coordinator in our ward and now I hate everybody. Pretty much. I am using this book in our convention.
I’m thinking of joining some church that doesn’t have visiting teaching. :)
Imagine my surprise to join belief.net and see that you were a columnist. I have read your books and remember with such gladness your humor and intellect when we were sisters in the Chricago Hts. Ward way to many years ago to talk about. Thank you for your insight. We now live in Bellingham, Wa., but soon to be in Texas for our final resting place. We have 3 grown children and 2 3/4 grandbabies. I am much older than you and Chris. Keep up the good work and continue to remind us not to take ourselves so seriously.
Janice (and Dean) Hurst
Janice, you did what I did, not realizing that Linda left the building last year.
But yeah, she sounds like a cool woman.