The melodious and emotionally riveting poems in Janice Hoffman's Soul Cookies recount familial victories and challenges while also revealing the poet's reverence for literary and historical figures, as well as her astute comprehension of art. Her meticulous imagery and attention to detail vivify an array of characters in poems that personalize the author's view of humanity. Admirable is Hoffman's decision to remain positive despite life's obstacles and instead to "chase the gloom of darkness far away."

Dr. Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda

Virginia Poet Laureate Emerita

Peering through history's fog-edged windows, Janice Hoffman plumbs her fertile imagination to reimagine characters from paintings, the Bible, and ancestors from her own family tree. The poems in her debut collection sweep the emotional arc from playful romps through gardens and visions of fairies to somber reflections of loved ones now gone. Throughout, scent and color serve as touchstones of memory, as in the poem of her son's suicide, where "Every October, my heart converts to dull brown, and once again, I dry and descend with the leaves." Soul Cookies is earnest and accessible, its pages brimming with country wisdom and heart.

Bill Glose

F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Award winner

Author of Virginia Walkabout, Personal Geography,

Half a Man, and The Human Touch