Gloria Hochman is an award-winning author, journalist, broadcaster and popular public speaker who writes “to hit a nerve.” 

She wants her words to change the way people think, feel, behave and live their lives.

Bio


Her books include A Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic-Depressive Illness, which she co-authored with late actor Patty Duke. The book was on The New York Times best-seller list for ten weeks.

Hochman is also the author of Adult Children of Divorce: Breaking the Cycle and Finding Fulfillment in Long Marriage and Family, co-written with psychiatrist Edward W. Beal, and Heart Bypass: What Every Patient Must Know.

Her most recent book, Stan Hochman Unfiltered, comprises columns written by her late husband—longtime Philadelphia Daily News sportswriter, broadcaster, occasional restaurant reviewer and radio personality (he was the “Grand Imperial Poobah” on WIP)—over a period of fifty years. 

Her e-book, The Age for Change explores issues facing baby-boomers as they re-brand the expectations and possibilities of aging. The book, which Hochman edited and to which she contributed several chapters, was published by Coming of Age, a project of Temple University’s Intergenerational Center, local NPR affiliate station WHYY, AARP Pennsylvania and the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania. 

Hochman has published hundreds of articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer magazine and the newspaper’s health and science sections; her work has also appeared in Newsweek, Ladies’ Home Journal, Psychology Today, Reader’s Digest and Science Digest. She has reviewed books for The New York Times.

Along with her daughter, journalist and essayist Anndee Hochman, and Jennifer Miller, she co-authored “Foster Care: Voices from the Inside,” a seminal report on the U.S. foster care system, published by the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care. The paper was presented during Congressional hearings and disseminated to the media.

Hochman is a dynamic public speaker whose topics have included:

  • Who is this stranger? Navigating new waters with your adult children

  • Who is my mother? Inside the mind of an adopted child

  • When should children be taken away from their parents?

  • Does she have bipolar illness or is she just moody?

  • Long-term impacts on adult children of divorce

  • Why writers write: What my subjects have taught me

Gloria and her daughter, writer Anndee Hochman, interview each other about their writing lives at the Bala Cynwyd library, May 2024

For more than 40 years, Hochman directed communications for the National Adoption Center, which works to expand adoption opportunities for children with special needs. She served as deputy chair for the Writers’ Emergency Assistance Fund of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and currently serves on the board of the Sylvia W. and Randle M. Kauders Foundation, which awards grants to Philadelphia-area arts and culture organizations. 

Hochman has been a frequent guest on radio and television programs focused on child welfare, including CBS/KYW Newsradio’s “Wednesday’s Child” show featuring a child waiting for adoption. She is an affiliate member of the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, where she completed a fellowship in psychodynamic therapy.

Her husband, Stan Hochman, renowned sportswriter and broadcaster, passed away in 2015. Her daughter, Anndee Hochman, is a journalist, essayist, storyteller and teaching artist who works with writers of all ages.

Anndee and Gloria join hands (and voices) at Marie’s Crisis Café, a Broadway sing-along bar in the West Village, June 2024