a reading by alice hoffman

It’s fascinating to hear a writer talk about their book. It almost doesn’t matter what the book is about or whether or not it’s one you might choose to read on your own. There is always something to learn, some kernel of wisdom to be found.

But it’s a special treat when the writer is someone truly extraordinary.

On Wednesday night, I attended a reading at The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, by New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

Hoffman read from her new book THE RED GARDEN, which is made up of, in her words, “interlinked short stories”. These stories take place over a period of three hundred years in the small fictional town of Blackwell, in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

Hoffman said she, “put everything she loves about Massachusetts into this book,” and mentioned as well that several historical figures wandered into the stories, including Emily Dickinson.

In THE RED GARDEN, there is a plot of land in the town of Blackwell where everything planted on it all blooms red. I love this!

And I think it would be fair to include this book in the ever-elusive genre of magical realism, where certain magical elements blend into an otherwise realistic world; although, I wish that I had thought to ask Alice the other night what term she was most comfortable using to describe the magic in her books.

My book will also fall into the chasm of magical realism. I know I don’t openly talk about this part of my book, and only a few of you know of the magic that is found in the Iowa cornfields by my characters, Jacy and Olivia and Travis. So it was nice to hear Hoffman reveal that she’s “a big secret keeper” and that she doesn’t share much while she’s working on a book. I’m not the only one!

In answer to a question about her writing process, Hoffman said that her initial writing is very “dreamy”. She doesn’t exactly know where a story is going until later on. She outlines, makes mood boards (with different color markers:) And then outlines again. She said she does, “a lot of revision”.

A great example of this is the way she worked on her latest book that’s due out in October, THE DOVE KEEPERS. She went into the book knowing that there would be four women characters, and she would write in each of their voices, and that by the end, two of them would die and two of them would live. But she didn’t know as she was writing along which two would survive.

I know I’m not that brave yet as a writer, and the book I’m working on now is a bit more plot driven, but I do love the questions that arise for me in my own writing when I just think about working this way.

Several audience members were clearly huge Hoffman fans, having read most if not all of her eighteen novels for adults and eight novels for teens and young adults. Many of them had special favorites and were curious if Alice had any herself. She said that often her favorite was the one she had just finished or the one she was currently working on. She said, “I learn the world of the book and then I exit it.” And I think that makes sense, to be closest to the one you’re living in on a daily basis.

One woman asked how it was possible to work on two projects at the same time, to go back and forth between two worlds, imagining it to be quite difficult. Hoffman’s answer was: “You’re in Paris, and then you go to Venice for a few days; then you go back to Paris. It’s more like that.”

I do agree. Working on multiple projects is wonderful. You can then take a vacation from one and go to the other – and still be working!

One last thing that stuck in my head… Hoffman said, she believes “where you live does change who you are and what you become.”

Now that’s something to think about, isn’t it? Am I living in the right place to become who I want to become? Do I know who I want to become? Can I write the book I want to write, living where I’m living?

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