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About Kristan Hoffman

Originally from Houston, TX, Kristan Hoffman studied creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University and attended the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Now she lives with her family in Cincinnati, OH, where she writes both fiction and nonfiction with a focus on feminist, multicultural stories. Her shorter work has appeared in Sugar Mule, the Citron Review, and Switchback, among others. She is currently at work on a Young Adult novel, and is represented by Tina Dubois of ICM. For more, please visit her website.

Recent Posts by this author:

  • A Grab Bag of Tools and Tips
  • 3 Lessons About the Creative Process (As Learned From My Toddler)
  • Make the Ordinary Come Alive
  • What Motherhood Has (and Hasn’t) Changed About My Writing
  • Shared Dreams, Shared Success: The Power and Value of Critique Partners
  • Dear Young Writer
  • Writing Through Life’s Stages: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
  • Making a House a Home (and What It Taught Me About Writing)
  • Fallow Fields — An Argument for Letting Your Creativity Rest
  • What’s in Your Bag of Tricks?
  • Getting Over the Hump
  • Change Your Mindset

    • A Grab Bag of Tools and Tips

    By 19 Comments

    Let me be honest: I’m probably not the person you should be taking writing advice from right now. I have a toddler and an infant, which means that most days, I’m just barely hanging on.

    (Thankfully, things are getting better now that the baby is sleeping through the night.)

    But then again, maybe I’m exactly who you should be taking writing advice from. Because I’ve never had less time, energy, or brain power to spare — and yet here I am, still writing.

    (Well, some days.)

    Today what I’m offering is a hodgepodge of small, practical things that have been useful to me and my writing lately, in the hopes that you may find something to take away for yourself. There is no through-line between them — and no further preamble! [Read more…]

    3 Lessons About the Creative Process (As Learned From My Toddler)

    By 10 Comments

    One of the greatest gifts of parenthood — and perhaps one of the greatest tricks — is that as much as you are teaching and guiding your kids, so too are they teaching and guiding you. Even though my daughter doesn’t yet comprehend what I do, she has been an invaluable source of inspiration, and […]

    Make the Ordinary Come Alive

    By

    I recently stumbled across some parenting advice that resonated deeply with me, and if you’ll bear with me, I’ll explain why I think it’s valuable for us to consider in regards to our writing too. Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way […]

    What Motherhood Has (and Hasn’t) Changed About My Writing

    By

    The first time my husband and I talked about having kids, we were in our early 20s, not yet married, and the idea of starting a family felt so far away it might as well have been on the planet Jupiter. But then 22 became 25 became 29. The years blinked away faster than I […]

    Shared Dreams, Shared Success: The Power and Value of Critique Partners

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    I think there’s a common vision of the writer as a loner. Supposedly we all sit alone in our small dim rooms, hunched over the blue glow of our laptops, muttering to ourselves as we try to work out the perfect sequence of words. (I may or may not be doing that right now, haha.) […]

    Dear Young Writer

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    Dear Young Writer, (“Young” meaning where you are in your writing journey, by the way. Not your actual age.) I may be older and wiser, or I may just be waxing nostalgic, but either way, I’d like to say a few things to you, if you don’t mind indulging me. First, you are innocent and […]

    Writing Through Life’s Stages: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

    By

    It’s almost midnight, and I’m sitting in the dark with my laptop, music on and earbuds in, my husband falling asleep in bed next to me. This is what so much of my writing life has looked like over the past decade. I imagine this is what much of it will look like in the […]

    Making a House a Home (and What It Taught Me About Writing)

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    Maybe it’s because I’m the daughter of two architects, but I’ve always thought of writing a book as being like building a house. You pour the foundation, frame the walls, install the roof, rough-in the plumbing and electric… etc. etc. If you’re a plotter, you’ll do all this work based on blueprints you drew up […]

    Fallow Fields — An Argument for Letting Your Creativity Rest

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    The first sign was music. Or lack thereof. My mind was calling for silence. Demanding it, to the point that I couldn’t even bear to turn on the radio while driving. And not just because I was tired of hearing the same 10 songs over and over. (Even the good ones get old after awhile.) […]

    What’s in Your Bag of Tricks?

    By

    Since I was about 9 years old, all I’ve wanted is to be a writer. Some of my strongest memories are of sitting in my own little room at my parents’ print shop, surrounded by filing cabinets and spare computer parts and dusty paper samples, filling the hours between school and dinner by scribbling stories into […]

    Getting Over the Hump

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    There’s a carnival game I love called Roller Bowler. The objective is to propel a bowling ball over a hump on a metal track. Sounds simple, but it’s not so easy. Too little force, and you won’t make it over the hump in the first place. Too much force, and the ball will go racing over the hump, […]

    Change Your Mindset

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    A few months ago, my husband recommended that I read the book MINDSET. At first I dismissed it as just another one of the many business/management guides that clutters his nightstand from time to time. But my husband insisted that this book was different, that it would be good for me. In fairness, he has been known to be […]