Alice Hoffman

Author profile

born

in New York, New York, The United States

March 16, 1952

gender

female

website

http://www.alicehoffman.com

genre

Literature & Fiction, Young Adult, Magical Realism

About this author

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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 in Boston and New York.

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 magazin...more 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 in Boston and New York.

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 our most distinguished novelists. She has published a total of sixteen novels, two books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults. Her novel, HERE ON EARTH, an Oprah 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 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 Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. BLACKBIRD HOUSE is a book of stories centering around an old farm on Cape Cod. Hoffman's recent books include AQUARMARINE and INDIGO, novels for pre-teens, and The New York Times bestsellers THE RIVER KING, BLUE DIARY, THE PROBABLE FUTURE, and THE ICE QUEEN. GREEN ANGEL, a post-apocalyptic fairy tale about loss and love, was published by Scholastic and THE FORETELLING, a book about an Amazon girl in the Bronze Age, was published by Little Brown. This fall Little Brown published the teen novel INCANTATION, a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly has chosen as one of the best books of the year. In January 2007, SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS, a novel about one family’s secret history, was released on the 30th anniversary of the publication of Hoffman’s first novel.

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 Weist. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, Redbook, Architectural Digest, Gourmet, Self, and other magazines. Her teen novel AQUAMARINE was recently made into a film starring Emma Roberts.
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14 posts
Alice Hoffman's Blog

Alice Hoffman isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but she does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from her feed.

Voices Carry

The woman in history who has meant the most to me was a thirteen year-old girl when she began the diary about which John Kennedy wrote, "Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spo

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Published on March 25, 2011 08:27 • 221 views

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Alice Hoffman's Books

Average rating: 3.72 · 157,898 ratings · 16,776 reviews · 50 distinct works · Similar authors

	The Dovekeepers 3.98 of 5 stars 3.98 avg rating — 23,472 ratings — published 2011 — 18 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Here on Earth 3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 avg rating — 22,112 ratings — published 1997 — 40 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Practical Magic 3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 avg rating — 18,792 ratings — published 1995 — 39 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ice Queen 3.47 of 5 stars 3.47 avg rating — 8,265 ratings — published 2005 — 47 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Red Garden 3.65 of 5 stars 3.65 avg rating — 6,940 ratings — published 2011 — 10 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Story Sisters 3.77 of 5 stars 3.77 avg rating — 6,557 ratings — published 2009 — 13 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Probable Future 3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 avg rating — 6,619 ratings — published 2003 — 33 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Green Angel (Green Angel, #1) 3.85 of 5 stars 3.85 avg rating — 5,359 ratings — published 2003 — 13 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Third Angel 3.5 of 5 stars 3.50 avg rating — 5,712 ratings — published 2008 — 21 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The River King 3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 avg rating — 5,450 ratings — published 2000 — 37 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Alice Hoffman…

Series by Alice Hoffman

Green Angel (2 books)
by Alice Hoffman
3.8727169757893245 of 5 stars 3.87 avg rating — 7,063 ratings

Water Tales (3 books)
by Alice Hoffman
3.442867116592972 of 5 stars 3.44 avg rating — 4,297 ratings

Upcoming Events

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Interviews

July 2009, Alice Hoffman
"Siblings can grow up in the same house and live in the same room and experience similar traumas, and still be so different. Parents and children live in separate worlds. To think that you know what your child's life is like, or what your mother's life is like—no matter how close you are—you can never really know." ...More

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Quotes by Alice Hoffman

“Books may well be the only true magic.”
― Alice Hoffman

tags: books

5,087 people liked it

“There are some things, after all, that Sally Owens knows for certain: Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Plant roses and lavender, for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

tags: lavender, love, magic, rosemary, salt, superstition

610 people liked it

“It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.”
― Alice Hoffman, Practical Magic

349 people liked it

See all Alice Hoffman's quotes »

Polls

The 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards: FICTION

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Goodreads Author)

1151 votes 17.1%

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

690 votes 10.2%

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger (Goodreads Author)

333 votes 4.9%

Shanghai Girls A Novel by Lisa See (Goodreads Author)

325 votes 4.8%

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

313 votes 4.6%

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

301 votes 4.5%

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

286 votes 4.2%

Fool A Novel by Christopher Moore

243 votes 3.6%

The Magicians by Lev Grossman (Goodreads Author)

236 votes 3.5%

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

231 votes 3.4%

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet A Novel by Jamie Ford (Goodreads Author)

229 votes 3.4%

Juliet, Naked A Novel by Nick Hornby

214 votes 3.2%

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

195 votes 2.9%

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

150 votes 2.2%

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

148 votes 2.2%

South of Broad by Pat Conroy

146 votes 2.2%

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

146 votes 2.2%

This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

138 votes 2.0%

Let the Great World Spin A Novel by Colum McCann (Goodreads Author)

137 votes 2.0%

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

131 votes 1.9%

Brooklyn A Novel by Colm Tóibín

124 votes 1.8%

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

114 votes 1.7%

Drood by Dan Simmons

112 votes 1.7%

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

105 votes 1.6%

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

101 votes 1.5%

The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (Goodreads Author)

91 votes 1.4%

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

81 votes 1.2%

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

73 votes 1.1%

Await Your Reply A Novel by Dan Chaon (Goodreads Author)

71 votes 1.1%

The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

63 votes 0.9%

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister (Goodreads Author)

62 votes 0.9%

6740 total votes

35 comments

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Alice Hoffman

Author profile

14 posts
Alice Hoffman's Blog

combine editions
Alice Hoffman's Books

Series by Alice Hoffman

Upcoming Events

Interviews

Quotes by Alice Hoffman

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add NewVideos

Alice's Fans (2235)

Alice Hoffman

Author profile

14 postsAlice Hoffman's Blog

combine editionsAlice Hoffman's Books

Series by Alice Hoffman

Upcoming Events

Interviews

Quotes by Alice Hoffman

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

14 posts
Alice Hoffman's Blog

combine editions
Alice Hoffman's Books