Amy Hoffman

Last updated
Amy Hoffman
Born1952 (age 7172)
Occupation
  • Writer
  • editor
Alma mater Brandeis University
Genre
Notable worksAn Army of Ex-Lovers
Website
amyhoffman.net

Amy Hoffman (born 1952) is an American writer, editor, and community activist. [1]

Contents

Early life

Hoffman was born to a traditional Jewish family. [2] She was the eldest of six children, and grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey. [3]

Hoffman graduated from Brandeis University in 1976. [1]

Career

Hoffman worked as an editor for Boston's Gay Community News from 1978 to 1982. [4] As features editor, she was responsible for putting together the June 1979 Stonewall tenth anniversary issue. [5]

During the mid 1980s Hoffman worked with Cindy Patton to publish a sex-positive magazine for several years. Named Bad Attitude it was part of what became known as the lesbian sex wars. Lesbian pornography had previosuly been created with the pleasure of straight men in mind. Patton and Hoffman sought to create a magazine that would celebrate the erotic potential of women with women in a way that affirmed lesbian sexuality, and de-centered straight men's pleasure. [6]

Hoffman published her first book, Hospital Time, in 1997, with a foreword by Urvashi Vaid. [7] [8] The book recollects her friendship with Mike Riegle in the wake of his death from AIDS. [9]

In 2007, Hoffman wrote the memoir An Army of Ex-Lovers about her time as an editor for Gay Community News. [4] The memoir was met with positive reviews in LGBT and mainstream media, and was a finalist for the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award and a Lambda Book Award in 2008. [1] [2] [4] [7] [10] [11] [12]

Hoffman was editor-in-chief of Women's Review of Books from 2003 to 2004 and from 2006 to 2018. [1] [7] Women's Review of Books had shut down between these periods due to lack of financing; Hoffman was the party most responsible for reviving the magazine. [3]

Personal life

Amy Hoffman is married to Roberta Stone. [1]

Publications

Memoirs

Novels

Panels

Related Research Articles

John Preston was an American author of gay erotica and an editor of gay nonfiction anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Coming Out Day</span> LGBT awareness and celebration day

National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an annual LGBT awareness day observed on October 11 to support anyone "coming out of the closet". First celebrated in the United States in 1988, the initial idea was grounded in the feminist and gay liberation spirit of the personal being political, and the emphasis on the most basic form of activism being coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person. The founders believed that homophobia thrives in an atmosphere of silence and ignorance and that once people know that they have loved ones who are lesbian or gay, they are far less likely to maintain homophobic or oppressive views.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gay liberation</span> Social and political movement in the 1960s and 70s

The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.

Rites was a Canadian magazine, published for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities in Canada from 1984 to 1992.

Beth E. Brant, Degonwadonti, or Kaieneke'hak was a Mohawk writer, essayist, and poet of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada. She was also a lecturer, editor, and speaker. She wrote based on her deep connection to her indigenous people and touched on the infliction of racism and colonization. She brought her writing to life from her personal experiences of being a lesbian, having an abusive spouse, and her mixed blood heritage from having a Mohawk father and a Scottish-Irish mother. Her published works include three edited anthologies and three books of essays and short stories.

<i>As Is</i> (play)

As Is is a 1985 American play written by William M. Hoffman. The play was first produced by Circle Repertory Company and The Glines and directed by Marshall W. Mason. It opened on March 10, 1985 at the Circle Rep in New York City, where it ran for 49 performances.

Shawn Syms is a Canadian writer and activist on LGBT issues and other aspects of progressive politics based in Toronto, Ontario.

Gay Community News was an American weekly newspaper published in Boston, Massachusetts from 1973 to 1999. Designed as a resource for the LGBT community, the newspaper reported a wide variety of gay and lesbian-related news.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sydney Pokorny</span> American lesbian writer, editor, columnist and activist (1965 – 2008)

Sydney Pokorny was an American lesbian writer, editor, columnist and activist based in New York. She graduated from Vassar College in 1988 with a degree in art history. The author of numerous articles on topics ranging from "Madonna Studies" to art criticism and the AIDS epidemic; she also cowrote the Lambda Literary Award nominated So You Want to be a Lesbian? with Liz Tracey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Parker</span> American poet and activist

Pat Parker was an American poet and activist. Both her poetry and her activism drew from her experiences as an African-American lesbian feminist. Her poetry spoke about her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister. At eighteen, Parker was in an abusive relationship and had a miscarriage after being pushed down a flight of stairs. After two divorces she came out as lesbian "embracing her sexuality" and said she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself".

Amber L. Hollibaugh was an American writer, filmmaker, activist and organizer concerned with working class, lesbian and feminist politics, especially around sexuality. She was a former Executive Director of Queers for Economic Justice and was Senior Activist Fellow Emerita at the Barnard Center for Research on Women. Hollibaugh proudly identified as a "lesbian sex radical, ex-hooker, incest survivor, gypsy child, poor-white-trash, high femme dyke."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Bronski</span> American academic and writer (born 1949)

Michael Bronski is an American academic and writer, best known for his 2011 book A Queer History of the United States. He has been involved with LGBT politics since 1969 as an activist and organizer. He has won numerous awards for LGBTQ activism and scholarship, including the prestigious Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. Bronski is a Professor of Practice in Media and Activism at Harvard University.

This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of South Asian ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities such as Hijra, Aravani, Thirunangaigal, Khwajasara, Kothi, Thirunambigal, Jogappa, Jogatha, or Shiva Shakti. The recorded history traces back at least two millennia.

Cindy Patton is an American sociologist and historian specializing in the history of the AIDS epidemic. A former faculty member at Temple University and Emory University, she currently teaches at Simon Fraser University, where she held the Canada Research Chair in Community, Culture, and Health from 2003 to 2014. Her work has appeared in Criticism, the Feminist Review, and the International Review of Qualitative Research, and she co-edited a special edition of Cultural Studies on French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT culture in Los Angeles</span>

Although often characterized as apolitical, “Los Angeles has provided the setting for many important chapters in the struggle for gay and lesbian community, visibility, and civil rights." Moreover, Los Angeles' LGBT community has historically played a significant role in the development of the entertainment industry.

The Bromfield Street Educational Foundation (1973–1999) was the oldest organization in Boston, Massachusetts's gay community.

David W. Dunlap is an American journalist who worked as a reporter for The New York Times. He wrote a regular column, Building Blocks, that looked at the New York metropolitan area through its architecture, infrastructure, spaces, and places.

John Mitzel was a Boston writer, publisher, bookseller, and gay community and cultural activist.

Gay American Indians (GAI) was a gay rights organization founded in San Francisco in 1975 by Randy Burns and Barbara May Cameron. It was notable for being the first association for gay Native Americans in the United States. Although initially a social group, GAI became involved in AIDS activism and the promotion of the Two-Spirit concept and community.

Walta Borawski was an American poet.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Amy Hoffman". Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Gale. 2010.
  2. 1 2 "An army of ex-lovers; my life at the Gay community news". Reference & Research Book News. 23 (3). August 2008 via Gale Academic OneFile.
  3. 1 2 Crapo, Trish (2011). "Amy Hoffman: Creating the Story of Her Life". Provincetown Arts Magazine: 117.
  4. 1 2 3 "Stephanie Grant (Map of Ireland) and Amy Hoffman (An Army of Ex-Lovers)". Center Happenings. 23 (3). March 2008.
  5. Hoffman, Amy (April 2, 2020). "Love One Another or Die". Boston Review. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
  6. Lopez, Russ (2019). The Hub of the Gay Unvierse: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond. Shawmut Peninsula Press. p. 243. ISBN   978-0-578-41086-9.
  7. 1 2 3 "Amy B. Hoffman, M.F.A." Wellesley Centers for Women. Retrieved 2023-03-12.
  8. Brophy, Sarah (2004). "Queering the Kaddish: Amy Hoffmanʼs Hospital Time and the Practice of Critical Memory". Witnessing AIDS : writing, testimony and the work of mourning. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press. p. 86. ISBN   978-1-4426-8352-5. OCLC   288099281.
  9. Brophy, Sarah (2004). Witnessing AIDS : writing, testimony and the work of mourning. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press. p. 79. ISBN   978-1-4426-8352-5. OCLC   288099281.
  10. Scott, Whitney (December 15, 2007). "An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News". Booklist. 104 (8): 7 via Gale Academic OneFile.
  11. Abbott, Charlotte. (December 4, 2007). "Printing Press: An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News". The Advocate (998): 65.
  12. Hoffmann, Amy (November–December 2007). "Feeling like 2,000-Year-Old Lesbian". Women's Review of Books. 24 (6): 30.