Anndee Hochman writer & teacher
BOOKS
Everyday Acts & Small Subversions:
Women Reinventing Family, Community & Home
"At thirty, I was beginning to hunt for permanence...There was much I wanted to know: how to sustain friendships that felt 'like family' over time and distance. How to make choices about commitment and children. How to celebrate milestones, whom to gather at my table. How to balance tradition and invention, pull threads from my past and use them to weave a future."
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named one of the 100 Most Important Books of the 20th Century by Sojourner magazine
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“…In this book, Hochman redefines family in ways that are always refreshing and sometimes breathtaking.”
--Whitney Scott, Booklist
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“Anndee Hochman helps us to imagine the new possibilities for relationships, rituals and language that truly reflect the ways we live and love.”
--Barbara Findlen, Ms.
Outside In: 50 Years of Forging Change
A history of Outside In, the "odd little agency" in Portland, Oregon, that started as a free clinic in 1968 and morphed to a multi-service center with a $12.5 million budget and a legacy of radical, inclusive care.
Anatomies: A Novella and Stories
"We buried Hank’s umbilical stump in the back yard, in sight of the basketball hoop, spitting distance from where the cucumbers will be. Emmy donated the box from her first pair of real earrings, and we nestled the stump on the little mattress of cotton. It was about as big as my thumb."
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San Francisco Chronicle bestseller
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“A writer whose voice is needed in our discordant culture.”
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
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“Hochman deftly interweaves humor, crisp language, and evocative imagery throughout Anatomies…Her prose is arresting and beautiful.”
--Meg Daly, The Oregonian
teaching
I teach young people through:
- Young Audiences of NJ/PA
- virtual artist residencies in public, charter and independent K-12 schools in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
I teach adults through:
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independent classes, workshops and ongoing groups (both virtual and socially distant in-person formats)
In my classes and workshops—online or in person, with children, teens or adults—I foster a community of writers who take creative risks, cherish differences and explore the transformative power of words.
For the past 25 years, I've taught memoir, poetry and creative non-fiction in schools, senior centers, detention facilities, drug/alcohol rehabs and a village on Mexico's Pacific coast. Lately I've pivoted to online platforms, including Zoom.
BIO
Anndee Hochman is a journalist, essayist and storyteller who listens intimately, questions fearlessly and writes frankly about people, families and communities. She pokes at big assumptions and cherishes small details. Anndee especially seeks voices on the margins, ideas that surprise and connect, stories that make it harder for us to dismiss each other.
She chases questions: What makes a family? What sustains a person, or a community? How do we stitch meaning from the scraps of daily life? When Anndee teaches writing to children and adults, they are also in search—looking inside and out for the sparks of a story and the tools to make them flicker.
Anndee's articles, profiles, political and personal essays and critical reviews have been published in Poets & Writers, O, the Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Health, OUT and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Her column, "The Parent Trip," appears weekly in The Philadelphia Inquirer, and she is a regular contributor to venues including Broad Street Review and WebMD. She's also a six-time winner of Moth Story Slams and shared the first-place title in Philadelphia's December 2022 GrandSlam.
Anndee's newest project is a young adult novel, My Plural Is People. The first chapter was a winner of the Arch Street Press 2020 contest and was also long-listed for the Voyage YA First Chapters contest. Rewrites happening in 2023!
"Words link lives. As a writer and teacher, I use language to discover, remember, subvert and understand. I write, and the words change me. I go back into the glittering, broken world to listen some more."
upcoming gigs
people & stories: a free "try it" session
in person at Lawrence Community Center
295 Eggert Crossing Road, Lawrenceville, NJ
Sunday, September 24, 2-4 p.m.
Hear a stunning, contemporary short story read aloud. Talk about it. Change your mind. That's the mantra of People & Stories/Gente y Cuentos, a non-profit that fosters deep conversation among people from all walks of life through reading together in community. In this free session, I'll read Linda Hogan's "Making Do" and lead a discussion afterward. Registration details here!
Reading & Writing for Craft Across Genres
A Blue Stoop class in the Zoomiverse!
8 Sundays, 4-6 p.m. ET, starting October 22
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A poem, short story or memoir can be a lament or a rant, a flight of nostalgia or immersion in another world. It can make us laugh, weep and remember. But it is also, always, a made thing, crafted and revised, the result of deliberate (and sometimes subconscious) choices on the part of its creator.
In this class, we’ll read an eclectic range of material with our focus tuned to those choices. How do writers use tone, verb tense, line length, word choice, pacing, figurative language and other tools in the literary tool box to create meaningful, resonant work? What are the “rules” of each genre; what happens when they’re broken? Then we’ll try out the tools, writing to emulate, respond to (or resist!) those model texts. You’ll grow the skills to read more deeply and write more intentionally.
Register right here! (And now!)
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Between the Lines: Reading Jewish Short Stories
Gratz College Continuing Education, on Zoom
6 Mondays, 6-8 p.m. ET, starting October 23
registration info here!
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Reading is typically a solitary venture. But when we read and discuss stories together, each person brings their whole life to the table: their regrets and ambitions, their insights and curiosities. The story grows larger. We learn from each other. We might change our minds.
In this six-session class, we'll read and talk about short stories from a range of Jewish writers, including Isaac Bashevis Singer, Tillie Olsen and Grace Paley. Each session will include a short writing prompt in response to the story and a chance to share your work aloud.
the heart & craft of memoir (with a storytelling add-on)
January 12-15, 2024
Stockton University, Galloway, NJ
Registration details just out!
A weekend-long, in-person memoir class. Sift through your life for touch-points--indelible conversations, decisions, wounds and breakthroughs--and learn to render those experiences with muscle and meaning. You'll examine models of stunning memoirs and practice using voice, pacing, language, details and structure to render your own. An optional add-on is a 3-hour storytelling workshop on Friday afternoon; you'll learn (and try out!) how writers create stakes, focus and a satisfying arc in a tale meant to be delivered live, before an audience.
Register for both or either here!
photo by Kenneth B. Moore
My young adult novel-still-in-progress, begun during National Novel Writing Month 2019, is getting some boosts. I received a grant from the deGroot Foundation to work on it this summer, and I'll be savoring two weeks at Bethany Arts Community in October to knock the book into readiness for agent-seeking. If you're curious, read the first chapter in Voyage, a YA journal. That chapter was also long-listed for the 2020 & 2021 Voyage YA First Chapters Contests, and the whole book was a finalist for the 2021 Acheven Book Prize in YA Fiction sponsored by Regal House Publishing.
show us your wits: funny women surviving coronavirus by laughing through it
Edited by Silvia Bajardi, Leigh Anne Jasheway, Chika Ekemezie & Carmen Woodruff. Available now for Kindle or in paperback!
This anthology collects essays from women across the world who are coping with quarantine, social distancing, sex, partnership, parenting, teleworking, and a range of other COVID-19 challenges with a jigger of humor (and the occasional afternoon shot of something more potent). My piece is "Tuning Out, Zooming In."
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(her)oics: women's lived experiences during the coronovirus pandemic
Edited by Amy Roost & Joanell Serra
Order it from Bookshop.org (independent booksellers) or directly from the press here!
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This collection includes essays by 52 women across the U.S. during COVID-19: front-line responders and recovering patients; women preparing to give birth, living with multiple generations, supporting the dying and grieving the loss of loved ones. My contribution, "Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus," won a 2020 American Society of Journalists and Authors award for personal essays. Order copies--for yourself or a gift-- directly from the press here!.
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stained: an anthology of writing about menstruation
Editors Rachel Neve-Midbar & Jennifer Saunders
Proceeds benefit Days for Girls, which promotes menstrual equity, dignity and health worldwide
CONTACT
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