Nightbird (Hoffman)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1952
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Raised—on Long Island, New York
• Education—B.A., Adelphi University; M.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts


Background
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.

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, 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 more than twenty novels, three books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults.

Adult Works
Her novel, At Risk (1988), which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools.

Practical Magic (1995) was made into a 1998 Warner film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.

Her novel, Here on Earth (1997), an Oprah Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights.

Hoffman’s advance from Local Girls (1999), 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.

Millennial novels include New York Times bestsellers The River King (2000), Blue Diary (2001), The Probable Future (2003) and The Ice Queen (2005). Blackbird House (2004) is a book of stories centering around an old farm on Cape Cod.

Then came The Third Angel (2008) and The Story Sisters (2009)—both bestsellers—and The Red Garden (2011), a collection of linked fictions about a small town in Massachusetts where a garden holds the secrets of many lives.

More recently, Hoffman published The Dovekeepers (2011) and The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014) to solid acclaim. Both spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Teen and preteen
Hoffman’s earliest books for young readers are Aquamarine (2001) and Indigo (2002). Green Angel (2003), a post-apocalyptic fairy tale about loss and love, was published by Scholastic, and The Foretelling (2005), about an Amazon girl in the Bronze Age, was published by Little Brown.

Her teen novel Incantation (2006) is a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly has chosen as one of the best books of the year. Hoffman also published Green Witch (2010), is a sequel to her popular post-apocalyptic 2003 fairy tale, Green Angel.

Most recently, Hoffman published Nightbird (2015), the story of an age-long family curse and a boy with wings.

Recognition
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, 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, the 1983 film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest.

Her teen novel Aquamarine was made into a 2006 film starring Emma Roberts.

Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Harvard Review, Ploughshares and other magazines.

Toni Morrison called The Dovekeepers "a major contribution to twenty-first century literature" for the past five years. The story of the survivors of Masada is considered by many to be Hoffman’s masterpiece. The New York Times bestselling novel is slated for 2015 miniseries, produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, starring Cote de Pablo of NCIS fame.

Reviewing The Museum of Extraordinary Things (2014) for The New York Times Book Review, Katherine Weber referred to it as "A lavish tale about strange yet sympathetic people, haunted by the past and living in bizarre circumstances… Imaginative." (Bio adapted from the author's website. Retrieved 4/13/2015.)