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RJ Hoffmann was born and raised in St. Louis and received an MFA in fiction from Columbia College Chicago. Hoffmann's writing has appeared in Barely South Review, The Sun, Harpur Palate, The Roanoke Review, Booth, and Lunch Ticket. He is the winner of The Madison Review's 2018 Chris O'Malley Prize for Fiction and a finalist for The Missouri Review's 2019 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors Prize. He lives in Elmhurst, Illinois with his wife and two children.
R.J. Hoffmann's website
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This interview includes spoilers
Congratulations on your debut novel, Other People's Children! Can you share your journey as a writer? Did you always want to be an author?
I blame all of this on my parents. When I was seven, my family's television broke, and they decided not to replace it until my siblings and I all made the honor roll in the same quarter. It took us a few years to piece that together, and in the meantime I became addicted to reading. When I was growing up, becoming a writer was like becoming an astronaut or a professional soccer player—something to fantasize about but not practical enough for serious consideration. So, instead, I became an IT consultant and wrote in the margins of my life. The fantasy persisted, though, and it's fair to say that it's always been something I dreamed of.
As I approached fifty, I realized that "always" has an expiration date, so I decided to quit my job and go back to school for my MFA. I kept quiet about it because it felt a bit foolish. I only told those closest to me, and those who asked how work was going. I probably gave more effort to each semester at Columbia than to my entire undergrad. I approached it as a job and spent fifty hours each week on schoolwork and ...
Amanda Bestor-Siegal received her M.F.A. from the Michener Center for Writers, University of Texas, specializing in fiction and screenwriting. Her nonfiction work has been published in The Threepenny Review, River Teeth, and ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Other People's Children
Try:
The Caretakers
by Amanda Bestor-Siegal
Therese Anne Fowler is the third child and only daughter of a couple who raised their children in Milan, Illinois. An avowed tomboy as a child, Therese protested her grandmother's determined attempts to dress her in ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Other People's Children
Try:
A Good Neighborhood
by Therese Anne Fowler
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