The writing of both Amy Hoffman and Robin Becker is motivated and influenced by their queer, Jewish identities. Colleagues and friends for decades, they will talk about their writing and influences and read from recent work.

Copies of Hoffman‘s The Off Season and Becker‘s The Black Bear Inside Me will be available for purchase at the Bureau. To reserve a copy/copies please write to us at contact@bgsqd.com. Please support the Bureau by buying books from us. Thank you!

In addition to her novel, The Off Season, Amy Hoffman is the author of the memoirs Lies About My Family; An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News; and Hospital Time. She was editor in chief of Women’s Review of Books for fourteen years and currently teaches creative writing at Emerson College and in the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program.

Robin Becker is the author of eight collections of poetry, most recently, The Black Bear Inside Me. She recently retired as Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Penn State. The Penn State Laureate in 2010-2011, Becker is the recipient of many awards, including a Bunting Fellowship, Massachusetts Artists’ Foundation grant, and a Lambda Literary Award.