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The mixologist’s daughter: raising a glass to reinvention, again
Happy hours, then and now
Over the course of almost 30 years, some things change and some don’t—and Anndee Hochman, from writing to bartending and back again, learns that personal reinventions don’t have to shake the foundations of family.
Essays
5 minute read
‘The Diamond Cutter’s Daughter: A Poet’s Memoir’ by Elaine Terranova
Facets of family life
Poet Elaina Terranova has more in common with her father than she knew. ‘The Diamond Cutter’s Daughter’ explores power, fear, and longing in a Philadelphia Orthodox Jewish family. Anndee Hochman reviews.
Reviews
5 minute read
When we can’t meet in person, do we need a shorthand for our identity?
Invisible in the Zoomiverse
It’s hard enough to navigate our identities IRL. What happens when we’re reduced to a Zoom box or other distanced communication? Anndee Hochman considers.
Essays
5 minute read
After a year of pandemic life, how do we measure the distance between then and now?
A year ago…
How have we weathered the last year? Let us count the ways. Births. Zooms. Funerals. The hugs we missed. Anndee Hochman is still realizing that anything can happen.
Essays
5 minute read
‘A Cartography of Home’ by Hayden Saunier
When we were still a place
A new poetry collection from Hayden Saunier weaves Pennsylvania’s natural world with its mini-marts and hotels, exploring possibility, loss, compound perspectives, and calls to customer service. Anndee Hochman reviews.
Reviews
5 minute read
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What happens when the stress of the pandemic leads to a surprising yes?
Bring on the Zoomitzvah
Plan and lead a family bat mitzvah in four days? Anndee Hochman is a writer, not a rabbi, but something about the COVID-19 pandemic made her say yes to her cousin's request.
Essays
5 minute read
Here’s how my Jewish great-grandparents’ Philly bakery lives in me today
The food chain
While braiding and baking the Friday challah, Anndee Hochman imagines her great-grandmother’s journey from Russia. What did she carry with her? Are those things alive today?
Essays
4 minute read
Deep in the pandemic, can a neighborhood’s character survive?
Still the one who walks
Before a virus turned the world upside down, Anndee Hochman was a familiar figure to her neighbors as she walked Germantown Avenue. What has changed? What is perennial, even in a pandemic?
Essays
5 minute read
Even in a pandemic, there are some questions only storytellers can answer
Surviving on stories; stories on surviving
Stephen King wrote ‘The Stand’ and Camus wrote ‘The Plague.’ They’re not the first or the last to mine rampant sickness for human meaning. Anndee Hochman wonders how our storytellers will make sense of COVID-19.
Essays
4 minute read
When disaster is about to strike, is it a gift not to know?
The moment before
What were you doing in mid-March, when the realization hit you that this pandemic was going to derail the world? Was it like other moments before disaster struck? Anndee Hochman considers.
Essays
5 minute read
Here’s what happened in my 2nd-grade classroom as COVID-19 became a pandemic
Poetry in the time of coronavirus
“We’re not closing,” a local K-5 principal told teaching writer-in-residence Anndee Hochman. But things changed more quickly than anyone could believe.
Essays
5 minute read
A Barnard College parent in Philly grapples with the death of Tessa Majors
A mother in the aftermath
News of a fatal stabbing in Morningside Park rocked Anndee Hochman’s family—her own daughter is a classmate of the victim. How do parents and their children cope with the nightmare of violence?
Essays
4 minute read
‘Even If Your Heart Would Listen,’ by Elise Schiller
Writing from wounds
‘Even If Your Heart Would Listen,’ exploring the loss of an adult child to addiction, is both memoir and an indictment of how our healthcare system is failing us. Anndee Hochman reviews.
Articles
4 minute read
‘Cursed’ by Karol Ruth Silverstein
Anything but perfect
We’re used to the arcs of YA novels like ‘Cursed.’ What’s new is a realistic protagonist navigating high school and a serious chronic illness. Anndee Hochman reviews.
Articles
4 minute read
Michelle Angela Ortiz’s ‘Las Madres de Berks’
It’s happening here
A new documentary, ‘Las Madres de Berks,’ confronts the human cost of detaining immigrant families—not just at our country's southern border but right here in Pennsylvania. Anndee Hochman reviews.
Articles
4 minute read