Goddard MFA alumna and critically acclaimed novelist Cara Hoffman will read from her most recent novel “Be Safe I Love You” at 7 P.M. on Saturday, February 13th in Fort Worden State Park Building 204. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing and is free and open to the public. The reading is presented by Goddard’s MFA in Creative Writing Program’s Visiting Writers’ Series.
The New York Times Book Review states that her work is “a finely tuned piece of fiction . . . Be Safe I Love You is a painful exploration of the devastation wrought by combat even when the person returns from war without a scratch. . . . this book is a reminder that art and love are all that can keep us from despair.”
Cara Hoffman is the author of the critically acclaimed novels, So Much Pretty and Be Safe I Love You. Be Safe I Love You, was nominated for a Folio Prize, named one of the Five Best Modern War Novels by the Telegraph UK, and won a Global Filmmakers Award at Sundance in 2015. So Much Pretty was named Best Suspense novel of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review.
Originally from upstate New York, Hoffman dropped out of high school to work full time, bought a one way ticket to London and spent the next three years traveling and working under the table jobs in Europe and the Middle East. In the 90s, she returned to the United States and found a job delivering newspapers which eventually led to work as a staff reporter, covering environmental issues, politics and crime.
Hoffman received no high school diploma nor undergraduate degree. She was admitted to Goddard College’s Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, graduating in 2009. She is the recipient of a number of awards, including New York State Foundation for the Arts fellowship for her work on the aesthetics of violence. She has been a visiting writer at St. John’s, Columbia and Oxford Universities. Her essays have appeared on NPR and in Salon, Marie Claire, The New York Times and The New York Times Book Review.