Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) in Manchester and a statewide writers’ group, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project (NHWP) announced the creation of the New Hampshire Literary Hall of Fame as well as an inaugural class of authors and poets.
The 2015 inductees are:
· Robert Frost (posthumously) -- Former poet laureate of the United States, Frost attended Dartmouth University and made his home in NH for many years. Frost was tapped to read at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961 and received four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry. He is probably best remembered for his works “The Road not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
· Grace Metalious (posthumously) -- Born in Manchester, Metalious rocked the American literary scene in 1956 with Peyton Place, a novel about the dark secrets of a small town. She penned three more successful novels before dying at age 39.
· John Irving -- Irving was born and raised in Exeter. His The World According to Garp became an international bestseller in 1978, and, in 1999, Irving won an Academy Award for “best adapted screenplay” for his retooling of his novel The Cider House Rules. Other noted works include The Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany.
· Donald Hall -- Hall has authored more than 50 books, including 15 volumes of poetry. A longtime resident of Wilmot, Hall holds a Caldecott Medal for his children’s book The Ox-Cart Man. He is a former U.S. Poet Laureate and is highly regarded for his work as an academic, formerly holding teaching positions at Stanford University, Bennington College, and University of Michigan.
The Hall of Fame will be housed at SNHU’s new Learning Library on North River Road in Hooksett, where it will display works by the inductees, including artifacts like first editions and rough drafts.
The Hall of Fame was created to pay homage to the inductees as well as to the Granite State’s broad literary history, said immediate Past NHWP President John Herman. A secondary goal, he said, is to promote literacy here.
“Everyone knows the name Robert Frost, but how many high-school classes are sitting down to read him today? He’s just as relevant as he ever was,” Herman said. “Peyton Place created an uproar when it came out in the 1950s, but now that the fuss has died down, we can see what a well-crafted and important piece of literature it is.”
The NH State Library has identified more than 12,000 published NH authors and poets dating back to Colonial times.
The names of potential inductees were selected through a public nomination process, then the NHWP board of trustees culled the list down to 10 prospects. A selection committee, composed of Tim Horvath, a short-story writer who teaches at NH Institute for the Arts in Manchester; Sally Hirsh-Dickinson, NH Public Radio Weekend host, NHWP trustee, and professor at Rivier University in Nashua; Sidney Hall, poet and publisher of Hobblebush Books in Peterborough; Kathryn Growney, dean of the library at SNHU; and Van McLeod, the state’s Department of Cultural Resources commissioner, made the final selections.
The induction ceremony will be held at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, at the SNHU library as part of NHWP’s annual Writers’ Day conference. Questions can be directed to info@nhwritersproject.org.
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