Writers' Project, Book Festival Held this Week in Concord

The New Hampshire Writers’ Project will present its second New Hampshire Book Festival in October, with a theme of “Murder in New Hampshire.”

Working with several Concord area partners, the Writers’ Project is involved with Concord Reads, sponsored by the Concord Public Library Foundation; The Big Read program, sponsored by the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library, and NHTI, Concord’s Community College, which will host two events with the Writers’ Project – an evening with best-selling author Anita Shreve and the presentation of the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry.

Concord Reads has chosen "The Weight of Water," by Shreve as its community-wide reading project for the fall. The novel centers around the murder of two women in 1873 on Smuttynose Island on the Isle of Shoals, off the New Hampshire coast. It skips to present day with a photographer working on a project about the murders.

Four New Hampshire authors will share their work with an audience at the Concord Public Library beginning at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 14. The writers are Richard Adams Carey, Mark Okrant, George Kelly and Robert Begiebing.

Carey will open the afternoon with his talk on “Murder in New Hampshire  Colebrook, 1997.” He will be joined by journalist John Harrigan.

On Aug. 19, 1997, in the North Country community of Colebrook, five people died and several more were wounded during four separate shooting incidents over the course of that afternoon. It was a day of such dramatic event, involving so many people, that for months afterward the town’s News and Sentinel newspaper—where two were murdered—received letters of condolence from all over the world, including people in Asia, Africa, and South America.

It was the fate of John Harrigan—owner and publisher of the News and Sentinel at that time—to have played a central role in those events. Richard Adams Carey has been at work on a book about that day since 2004. Carey represents a writer’s perspective on such events; he will describe how he was drawn to the subject and read from his nonfiction work-in-progress, "Their Town." John Harrigan represents the perspectives of a friend, neighbor, witness, survivor—and a newspaperman who had to report on that day in the heat of the moment.

Carey is the author of "Raven's Children: An Alaskan Culture at Twilight, Against the Tide: The Fate of the New England Fisherman," and "The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire." He is the assistant director of Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA in Fiction and Nonfiction program, and a former president of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project.

At 2:30 p.m. at the library, scenes from George Kelly’s play, “Langmaid,” will be performed. Kelly’s stageplay tells of the grisly murder of Josie Langmaid in the late 1800s in Pembroke. Her killer was caught and convicted, but Kelly’s play is a fictionalized account of the case in which the wrong man was accused and nearly hanged. Kelly, a Concord resident is a retired educator and principal. He teaches writing courses at NHTI – Concord’s Community College.

At 3:30 p.m., Mark Okrant will talk about the murder and mayhem that take place in his New Hampshire-based books, including the Kary Turnell Mystery Series, which use New Hampshire tourist destinations as backdrops. Okrant is a professor of tourism management at Plymouth State University and frequently writes of murder at New Hampshire’s grand hotels.

Author Robert Begiebing will close the afternoon’s events with a talk on one of the earliest murder cases in New Hampshire.

Begiebing’s The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin takes place on the New Hampshire coast in the late 1640s. A young woman’s body has been found in
a river. Adding to the mystery is her husband’s halt to legal proceedings against a suspect who has disappeared into the New England wilderness. Begiebing’s book is based on an actual unsolved murder in colonial New Hampshire.

Originally published in 1992, The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin has been re-released by University Press of New England. It is the first in Begiebing’s trilogy of New England fiction, including The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton and Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction. Begiebing is founding director of the low-residency MFA in fiction and nonfiction at Southern NH University, where he has won three awards for excellence in teaching and is currently professor of English emeritus. He is a former board member of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project. New Hampshire Book Festival schedule:

• Wednesday, Oct. 10:  novelist Elaine Isaak and poet Rodger Martin discuss the influence of Edgar Allan Poe on their work. The discussion is part of The Big Read program of the Center for the Book at the New Hampshire State Library at 7 p.m. Concord Public Library. Free. Elaine Isaak is the author of The Singer's Crown series of traditional fantasy novels and the epic fantasy novella series, "Tales of Bladesend. Her short fiction has appeared in several anthologies -- Flush Fiction (from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader), Live Free or Undead, and Escape Clauses. A graduate of the Odyssey Speculative Fiction Workshop, Isaak has written how-to articles for the Writer Magazine, and authored the Lady Blade fantasy writing column at AlienSkin magazine for three years. Her speaking engagements have included local chapters of Romance Writers of America, World Science Fiction and World Fantasy conventions, and the Odyssey Writing Workshop. Her best-known talk is entitled "Ten Mistakes I've Made in My Writing Career So That You Don't Have To." Poet Rodger Martin served at Fort Devens in 1968 and 1969 upon his return from Vietnam.  There he learned of its connection to Castle Island, Edgar Allan Poe and The Cask of The Amontillado and The Black Cat. The impact of those events and how language influences interpretation of those has subtly seeped into Martin’s poetry. Martin’s third poetry volume, The Battlefield Guide, uses locations on battlefields of the Civil War to reflect upon America today. Small Press Review selected The Blue Moon Series, as its bi-monthly pick of the year. He received an Appalachia poetry award, a New Hampshire State Council on the Arts Fiction Fellowship, and fellowships from The National Endowment for the Humanities, He has been translated in On the Monadnock New Pastoral Poetry released in China, 2007.  Recently, his poetry appeared in Imago Dei: The Best of Sixty Years of Christianity & Literature.  He serves as an editor in The Granite State Poetry Series.

• Thursday, Oct. 11, The Weight of Water author Anita Shreve is interviewed by Christina Lucas, NHTI professor of English, at the Sweeney Auditorium, NHTI – Concord’s Community College.  7 p.m. Seating limited. Free, but registration at www.nhwritersproject.org required. For directions and a campus map, visit: www.nhti.edu/directions.html.
• Friday, Oct. 12, authors in New Hampshire Pulp Fiction series, Live Free or Die, Die, Die!, read from their work in the short story collection. 6 p.m. Barley House, Main Street, Concord. Free.
• Friday, Oct. 12, Flash Fiction competition for the Concord area. Up to eight writers read original work for the right to compete in the state finals on April 6. Barley House, Main Street, Concord, 8 p.m. and immediately following Live Free or Die, Die, Die! readings. Free.
• Sunday, Oct. 14, an afternoon focused on “Murder in New Hampshire.” 1:30 to 5:30 p.m. Concord Public Library. Free. Authors Robert Begiebing, Richard Adams Carey, George Kelly and Mark Okrant.
• Monday, Oct. 15, author Richard Adams Carey talks about his work in progress, Their Town, about the 1997 murders in Colebrook, N.H. Conway Public Library, 7 p.m. Free.
• Wednesday, Oct. 24, presentation of the Donald Hall –Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry to Jane Hirschfield. 7 p.m. Sweeney Auditorium, NHTI – Concord’s Community College, Concord, N.H. $10. Register at nhwritersproject.org.

The prize is sponsored by the New Hampshire Writers’ Project and the Concord Monitor. Also attending the event will be Donald Hall, New Hampshire resident and former U.S. poet laureate, and Wes McNair, New Hampshire native and poet laureate of Maine. Previous winners of the Hall-Kenyon Prize are former U.S. poets laureate Ted Kooser and Kay Ryan.

Hirshfield has published seven collections of poetry, including Come, Thief; After; and Given Sugar, Given Salt, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She was elected chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2012. A week before the event, the NHWP Book Club for Poets, a group open to writers who wish to discuss craft, will feature Hirshfield's Come, Thief on Tuesday, Oct. 16, at the Danforth Library, New England College, in Henniker. For more information about the Book Club for Poets, visit on.fb.me/bc4poets.

For more information about the Hall-Kenyon
Prize, contact NHWP at (603) 314-7980 or ggeers@nhwritersproject.org