Hoffman, Wayne 1970-

views updated

Hoffman, Wayne 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born 1970. Education: Tufts University, B.A., 1991; New York University, M.A. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—WayneWriter@aol.com.

CAREER:

Journalist. Washington Blade, Washington, DC, contributor; Billboard, senior editor; New York Blade (weekly newspaper), New York, NY, cofounding editor, arts editor, and managing editor, 1997; Forward, New York, NY, managing editor, 2003—.

WRITINGS:

Hard (novel), Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2006.

Also coeditor of Policing Public Sex. Contributor to periodicals, including the Washington Post, Village Voice, Nation, Billboard, Advocate, XY, and Torso.

Contributor to anthologies, including Generation Q; Bar Stories;Men Seeking Men, edited by Michael Lassell, Painted Leaf Press (New York, NY), 1998; Boy Meets Boy, edited by Lawrence Schimel, St. Martin's Griffin (New York, NY), 1999; and Mama's Boy: Gay Men Write about Their Mothers, Painted Leaf Press (New York, NY), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

Wayne Hoffman, who cofounded the gay newspaper the New York Blade and serves as managing editor of the Forward, is the author of Hard, "an intriguing exploration of politics and psyche," according to a critic in Publishers Weekly. Set in New York City in the late-1990s, Hard explores the conflict between Moe Pearlman, a twenty-six-year-old graduate student and sex-positive activist, and Frank DeSoto, the aging publisher of a gay newspaper who lost his partner to AIDS and joins forces with the mayor to shut down the city's bathhouses, sex clubs, and adult theaters. Viewing Frank's actions as an attack on his freedoms, Moe takes the fight to his opponent, starting an alternative gay paper and arranging safe-sex parties.

According to Lambda Book Report contributor Michael Bronski, "Hoffman here deals with the heady issues of sex, repression, power, personal autonomy, and political resistance with humor and a chilling accuracy." "Hoffman's details and descriptions of citylife and the gay community of this era are superbly drawn (and he does present a ‘gay community’ in Hard—from buff-bod hustlers to hunky bears to HIV-positive ex-lovers), and he easily displays how this gay community overlaps with many other professional communities, such as those of journalism, advertising, travel, and, in particular, the theatrical community," noted Jameson Currier in the Velvet Mafia. Currier added: "While the political construct is what makes this novel so unique in gay fiction, it is Hoffman's dead-on descriptions (witty and wise) of his characters' sexual psyche that make it soar." Bronski concluded: "Hard is a compelling, sexy read and will become, over time, a book with cultural stature and status."