Poets Wear Prada have announced that Senior Editor Roxanne Hoffman will be reading at several literary events in New York City this month. In Loving Memory, her lyrical ballad chronicling a small-town church congregation from funeral to marriage, features illustrations by Connecticut artist Edward Odwitt.
“In Loving Memory should be on everyone’s shelves as it reflects on one of the darkest human experiences with insight and humanity in a charmingly gothic presentation,” said Garth von Buchholz, publisher, member of the National Book Critics’ Circle and author. Vampire verse by author Hoffman, a frequent dabbler in the horror genre, can be heard during Dave Gold’s 2005 indie flick Love and the Vampire. Twice included in the House of Horror best-of-the-year anthology, her 2010 contribution was nominated for Pushcart Prize.
Hoffman, now making her home in Hoboken, New Jersey, grew up on Manhattan’s Upper Westside. A Bronx High School of Science alumna, she lived for several years in Greenwich Village, while attending New York University’s Stern School of Business and later when she worked on Wall Street at Chase Manhattan Bank.
This coming Sunday, May 6th, Hoffman returns to her hometown where from 6:00 until 8:00 PM she joins The Hebrew Mamita Vanessa Hidary at the JujoMukti Tea Lounge, located at 211 East 4th Street, between Avenues A and B. Five dollars admission buys both a pot of tea and a spot on the roster for anyone wishing to participate in the open portion of the “unplugged” reading hosted by David Lawton, poet, actor and musician. Directions: F train to Second Avenue, 6 to Bleecker, or 14A bus from Union Square along Fourteenth to Third Street at Avenue A.
Host Lawton described the event where Hoffman and Hidary will read round-robin as “Mixed communities. Different backgrounds. Contrasting styles. Two lovely female poets come together to represent the state of the art with good humor and sex appeal.” Featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Hidary, herself a native New Yorker, recently published her first book “The Last Kaiser Roll in the Bodega.”
Saturday, May 19th, Hoffman goes west, to Greenwich Village where she will be reading for the Greek American Writers Reading Series at the Cornelia Street Café, 29 Cornelia Street (off Bleecker). Convening every third Saturday of the month, for poetry, prose — music, occasionally, and song — from 5:45 until 7:45 PM, the series, with Dean Kostos — his latest book, “Rivering,” soon to be published by Spuyten Duyvil Press — as host, has a $7 cover charge, which includes one free house drink. Co-featuring with Hoffman on the 19th will be Larissa Shmailo, Tom Fink and Penelope Karageorge.
Roxanne Hoffman worked on Wall Street. She divides her time now between a “night” job, answering the patient hotline for a New York home-healthcare provider, and a “day” one, running the literary press Poets Wear Prada. Her writing has appeared and continues to appear in periodical publication, widely — Champagne Shivers, Danse Macabre, Dark Eye Glances, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, Hospital Drive, House of Horror, Lucid Rhythms, Mirror Dance, The Pedestal Magazine, Scarlet Literary Magazine, SNM Horror Magazine among many others, and numerous anthologies including The Bandana Republic: A Literary Anthology by Gang Members and Their Affiliates (Soft Skull Press), Love after 70 (Wising Up Press), and It All Changes in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure (Harper Perennial).
You can pick up a copy on Amazon here: In Loving Memory
