Alice Hoffman

Alice Hoffman (born March 16, 1952) is an American novelist.

Alice Hoffman
Alice Hoffman
Born	(1952-03-16) March 16, 1952 New York City, United States
Occupation	novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer
Period	1977–present
Genre	Magic realism, fantasy, historical fiction
Website
alicehoffman.com

Early life and education

Alice Hoffman was born in New York City on March 16, 1952, and grew up on Long Island. After graduating from high school in 1969, she attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then received a Mirrellees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 74, receiving an MA in creative writing. She currently lives near Boston.

Career

Hoffman’s first novel, Property Of, was written at the age of twenty-one, while she was studying at Stanford, and published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. She credits her mentor, professor and writer Albert J. Guerard, and his wife, the writer Maclin Bocock Guerard, for helping her to publish her first short story in the magazine Fiction. Editor Ted Solotaroff then contacted her to ask if she had a novel, at which point she quickly began to write what was to become Property Of, a section of which was published in Mr. Solotaroff’s magazine, American Review.

Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of the most distinguished novelists. She has published over thirty novels, three books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Her novel, Here on Earth, an Oprah's Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights. Practical Magic was made into a Warner Brothers film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Her novel, At Risk, which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools. Hoffman’s advance from Local Girls, a collection of inter-related fictions about love and loss on Long Island, was donated to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. Hoffman has written a number of novels for young adults, including Aquamarine, Green Angel, and Green Witch. In 2007 Little Brown published the teen novel Incantation, a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly chose as one of the best books of the year.

Hoffman’s work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People Magazine. She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay “Independence Day,” a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest. Her teen novel Aquamarine was made into a film starring Emma Roberts. Her short fiction and non- fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Harvard Review, Ploughshares and other magazines.

Toni Morrison calls The Dovekeepers “... a major contribution to twenty-first century literature.” The story of the survivors of Masada is considered by many to be Hoffman’s masterpiece. The New York Times bestselling novel was adapted for television in a 2015 miniseries starring Rachel Brosnahan and Cote de Pablo.

Her most recent novels have received many accolades and are New York Times bestsellers. They include The Museum of Extraordinary Things, The Marriage of Opposites, and Faithful. Her novel, The Rules of Magic, is the prequel to her cult-classic Practical Magic. It was selected as a LibraryReads and IndieNext List Pick for October 2017, and was one of the Most Anticipated Books on iTunes. Reese Witherspoon picked it as her October 2017 Book Club read, remarking that the “story is full of magic, love, family, heartbreak and redemption.” Set in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, The Rules of Magic is a timeless story that reminds us that the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself. The World That We Knew, published in 2019, is an exploration of humanity set in France during the Holocaust. She published the short story “Everything My Mother Taught Me” as part of the Inheritance Collection in 2019. Her most recent novel, Magic Lessons, the third book in the Practical Magic series was published in October 2020, and received praise from The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, The Boston Globe, and was a Book of the Month Top Pick for October.

Personal life

She lives near in Boston.

Bibliography

Novels

• Property Of (1977)
• The Drowning Season (1979)
• Angel Landing (1980)
• White Horses (1982)
• Fortune's Daughter (1985)
• Illumination Night (1987)
• At Risk (1988)
• Seventh Heaven (1990)
• Turtle Moon (1992)
• Second Nature (1994)
• Practical Magic (1995)
• Here on Earth (1997)
• Local Girls (1999)
• The River King (2000)
• Blue Diary (2001)
• The Probable Future (2003)
• Blackbird House (2004)
• The Ice Queen (2005)
• Skylight Confessions (2007)
• The Third Angel (2008)
• The Story Sisters (2009)
• The Red Garden (2011)
• The Dovekeepers (2011)
• The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014)
• The Marriage of Opposites (2015)
• Faithful (2016)
• The Rules of Magic (2017) – prequel to Practical Magic
• The World That We Knew (2019)
• Magic Lessons (2020) -- prequel to Practical Magic

Young adult novels

• Aquamarine (2001)
• Indigo (2002)
• Green Angel (2003)
• Water Tales: Aquamarine & Indigo (omnibus edition) (2003)
• The Foretelling (2005)
• Incantation (2006)
• Green Witch (2010)
• Green Heart (2012)

Middle grade books

• Nightbird (2015)

Children's books

• Fireflies: A Winter's Tale (illustrated by Wayne McLoughlin) (1999)
• Horsefly (paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher) (2000)
• Moondog (with Wolfe Martin; illustrated by Yumi Heo) (2004)

Short stories

• Conjure (2014)

Nonfiction

• Survival Lessons (2013)

Filmography

• Independence Day (1983) (writer)
• Practical Magic (1998) (novel)
• Sudbury (2004) (novel)
• The River King (2005) (novel)
• Aquamarine (2006) (novel)
• The Dovekeepers (2014) (novel)

External links

• Alice Hoffman's website
• Alice Hoffman at IMDb
• Alice Hoffman at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Radio Interview on WFMT's Writers on the Record with Victoria Lautman