Goldhammer, Catherine

PERSONAL:

Children: a daughter. Education: Goddard College, B.A.; attended University of Massachusetts M.F.A. program.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Hull, MA. E-mail—dragonfly@catherinegoldhammer.com.

CAREER:

Poet, writer, trainer, and reading teacher.

WRITINGS:

Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea, Hudson Street Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Excerpts from Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea have appeared in O, the Oprah Magazine and Reader's Digest. Contributor to periodicals, including Georgia Review and Ohio Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Poet and memoirist Catherine Goldhammer was newly divorced and looking for a way to save money when she bought a house badly in need of repairs on the New England coast. Her twelve-year-old daughter resisted the move to such a remote locale, so Goldhammer attempted to make the move easier by supplying her animal-loving daughter with a clutch of chicks. Goldhammer records the results of her new life in the 2006 work, Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea, detailing the daily woes and joys of raising chickens and one's consciousness in a rural setting. The rundown cottage she purchased needed major renovations, and in the course of a year of rebuilding and caring for six chickens, both mother and daughter healed aspects of their lives and relationship. Reviewing Still Life with Chickens for Booklist, Nancy Brent found it a "wonderful, poetic chronicle of chickens and life changes [that] will entrance the reader." Similar praise came from an Internet Bookwatch reviewer, who felt the memoir was not only "captivating," but also "exceptionally well written and entertaining." A Publishers Weekly contributor also had praise for the book, noting that it was "not only amusing but sometimes reads like a self-help manual."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Goldhammer, Catherine, Still Life with Chickens: Starting Over in a House by the Sea, Hudson Street Press (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2006, Nancy Bent, review of Still Life with Chickens, p. 14.

Internet Bookwatch, May 1, 2006, review of Still Life with Chickens.

Publishers Weekly, March 20, 2006, review of Still Life with Chickens, p. 51.

ONLINE

Catherine Goldhammer Home Page,http://www.catherinegoldhammer.com (May 11, 2007).

SouthEasternMass.com,http://www.southeasternmass.com/ (April 24, 2007), "Calendar of Events."