"Survival Lessons" from Alice Hoffman '73

Alice Hoffman, who, since graduating from Adelphi, has become one of the country’s best-known authors, said her latest work, Survival Lessons, began as a way to keep herself from a “dark place” while battling breast cancer. Diagnosed at age 45, the Long Island native found it was very easy to get lost in the disease so she wrote short stories and notes as a way to remind herself of a happier past and better days to come.

“When you get a diagnosis of breast cancer, the world stops; it’s a trauma,” she said. Being diagnosed at the same time as her mother made the experience even more traumatic for Ms. Hoffman.

“I used to sit at the window with my dog,” Ms. Hoffman said about the ways she would make herself happy on the seemingly endless bleak days. She would record her thoughts, and her collection of short pieces grew into what is now a 96-page keepsake that any reader can relate to.

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