JOANNA HOFFMAN READS FROM HER POETRY COLLECTION RUNNING FOR TRAP DOORS

Running for Trap Doors (Sibling Rivalry Press)

In her debut full-length poetry collection, Joanna Hoffman navigates family dynamics, lesbian bars, religion, emoticons, and inner demons. Along the way, she begins to see her world and the characters in it in a new light and gradually learns how to get out of her own way.

Praise for Running for Trap Doors 

"What I love most about Joanna Hoffman’s poems in Running For Trap Doors is how they uplift without trying to; the candor embroidered in every story swells the reader with an aliveness, even in moments of undeniable loss. They are quiet anthems. Hoffman’s writing denounces pretension and settles into the violent swirl and joy of life’s incessant mosh pit."-- Rachel McKibbens, New York Foundation of the Arts Poetry Fellow and author of Pink Elephant

"Joanna Hoffman lingers in melancholia, but with instincts erring toward that peculiar strength of character possessed only by those whose frailty has truly taken a stomping. Hoffman’s ills are not imaginary, nor are her efforts to redress them. We should all be so bold, so concerned. And then there is this other thing, which is that never in my life have I read such concisely perfect portrayals of the religions hiding in a woman’s neck as I have in these fine poems. More than a debut, Running for Trap Doors is a statement of purpose."-- Megan Volpert, author of Sonics in Warholia

"While reading Joanna Hoffman’s book, I considered death, remembered high school, ached, marveled that one poem could say as much as a novel, laughed out loud alone, texted someone to say how good it was, and then hugged myself. It is precise, imagistic and purposeful, a fully realized narrative. In this book, there is a clean song jackknifing the fat from bone."-- Karen Finneyfrock, author of The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door

Joanna Hoffman is a poet and teaching artist living in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming on Upworthy, Buzzfeed, Winter Tangerine, decomP, PANK, The Offing, Union Station Magazine, The Legendary, Sinister Wisdom and in the Write Bloody Publishing anthologies We Will be Shelter and Multiverse. Her full-length book of poetry, Running for Trap Doors (Sibling Rivalry Press), was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and included in the American Library Association’s List of Recommended LGBT reading for 2014. She was honored by the White House as a 2015 Champion of Change for LGBTQ advocacy through art.