Alice Hoffman
July 7, 2009
- Last week was a great week for most writers. Alice Hoffman had a Twittersode where she invited fans to email and telephone a reviewer she felt had done her wrong; an interesting twist given that Hoffman herself fell victim to such author-over-the-topness years ago when Richard Ford, displeased with a revew Hoffman had written of one of his books, took Hoffman's latest book out in his back yard ...
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July 3, 2009
- I'm a writer first, and a reviewer second. It's difficult for me to imagine the word 'critic' after my name, as in Evelyn Sharenov, 'book critic,' restaurant critic,' theatre critic,' opera critic.' There is hypocrisy in this - I admit it. I write reviews and literary criticism for money. And I'm a card-carrying member of the National Book Critics Circle (well, they don't send out ...
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July 2, 2009
- When author Alice Hoffman read Roberta Silman’s review of her novel The Story Sisters, the author was not pleased. The review wasn’t stellar but certainly it wasn’t crushing. Hoffman, however, chose to respond in less than gracious fashion. She tweeted nasty comments about Silman and the Boston Globe, and published Silman’s e-mail and phone number. Apparently that last action was meant as ...
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July 1, 2009
- Ever since I'd mentioned a book I had read in a blog I wrote for the Huffington Post, which was well over two years ago, I have been getting requests from a number of publicists asking if I'd review an upcoming release. Although I make it clear that I don't actually review any book in typical fashion, but weave its premise into something going on in the world (or in my life), these publicists ...
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June 30, 2009
- Writing is a masochistic art: essentially, you put the (ouch!) most sensitive parts of your anatomy on an anvil... and hand out hammers. It's a risky business, indeed.Alice Hoffman recently felt the sledge-hammer strokes --in, we're told, a "mildly negative review"-- and decided to swing back... by asking her legions of fans to take up the pitchforks and torches. (See news story ...
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June 30, 2009
- Acclaimed novelist Alice Hoffman was called out on Gawker today for her angry twitter responses to a partially negative review of her latest novel, The Story Sisters, by Roberta Silman in The Boston Globe, Hoffman's hometown newspaper. Hoffman called the reviewer a "moron" and gave out her phone number. "Now any idiot can be a critic," Hoffman wrote. "Writers used to ...
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June 29, 2009
- Dear Reader,I am a huge fan of Alice Hoffman's novels. Like the critic Roberta Silman, who recently reviewed Ms. Hoffman's latest novel, The Story Sisters, in the Boston Globe, I came to love Ms. Hoffman's books first by reading Illumination Night, which I admired as much for the writing as for the tale. Nothing about the latest Twitter scandal, in which Ms. Hoffman supposedly ranted at Ms. ...
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June 1, 2009
- My new novel The Story Sisters is about the power of stories and the complications of family connections and family mythologies. At the start of each chapter there are pieces of The Black Book of Fairy Tales, a set of stories Elv Story tells to her sisters, Claire and Meg, as a way of giving voice to a truth she feels she must never tell. When read together, these stories add up to become the ...
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May 6, 2009
- For years before I started my own business as a freelance writer and publishing consultant, I was a national event specialist for Borders Group, Inc. This meant that I booked authors for events in our many stores across the country, while also hosting a vast number of events in our Manhattan location. I was given the opportunity to work with many authors, some famous, others not so famous, and ...
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February 21, 2009
- Okay, I knew I was a reading addict, but even I'm a bit dazed by the number of books I've read in the last week or so. (12 since last Friday alone... ahh!)There are some good reasons for the sharp uptick though.1. Vacation. Two six hour car rides, waiting for my husband to finish a hour-and-a-half meeting, and one glorious Sunday afternoon with few interruptions. As far as reading time goes, it ...
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