New Hampshire Writers’ Project’s Literary Hall of Fame honors
Granite State writers past and present
By Charlie Weinmann
The Granite State has its own halls of fame for hockey and country music, but it’s never had a literary hall of fame — until now. On Feb. 25, the New Hampshire Writers’ Project (NHWP) announced the first four inductees to its New Hampshire Literary Hall of Fame: Robert Frost, Donald Hall, John Irving, and Grace Metalious, writers who’ve made the state famous both on and off the page.
The hall of fame is a way to “remind others, and ourselves, of the fertile literary soil that exists here, and that for a small state, we have been the site of production for some highly significant and influential works of literature,” said Sally Hirsh-Dickinson, an NHWP board member who was part of the hall of fame selection committee.
The inaugural group of inductees was chosen after a round of crowd-sourced nominations that began last December. Hirsh-Dickinson, a professor at Rivier University and a host on New Hampshire Public Radio, said the committee received 63 nominations from the public. That list was narrowed down, first to 20 names, then to 10, and then to a final selection of four writers who’ve changed New Hampshire’s literary landscape. After this year, two new members will be inducted every two years.
“The process … was wonderfully civil, extremely engaging, and, by the end of it, I think each of us had been persuaded to reconsider an earlier position,” Hirsh-Dickinson said.
“There is no telling what she would have done had she not died so young. … Metalious was a literary badass.” — Rob Greene of N.H. Writers’ Project
Rob Greene, president of NHWP’s board of directors, said Frost was the only nominee who received “immediate landslide approval.”
“Even though he also is strongly identified with Vermont, and he reportedly did not like New Hampshire much, his place in the Granite State pantheon is pretty ironclad,” said Greene. “The same could be said for John Irving. He doesn’t have much to do with New Hampshire anymore … but several of his important books were set here, and he was born and raised in Exeter.”
Metalious shook the literary world in 1956 with “Peyton Place,” a novel that stripped away the quaint veneer of a small New Hampshire town to reveal scandals, murder, and a variety of other skeletons in residents’ closets.
“It raised a lot of eyebrows then, but only now, when those eyebrows are back in place and the eyes under them refocused, are people starting to see what an important, well-crafted book it was,” Greene said. “She had three solid novels after that, and there is no telling what she would have done had she not died so young. … Metalious was a literary badass.”
When Hall moved to the state in 1972, he “really made it home,” according to Green. A former U.S. Poet Laureate, teacher, and advocate for the literary community, Hall’s nomination was warmly received by the committee.
“Donald Hall is a prolific man of letters who, though best known for his poetry, has worked in many genres. And he continues to create. He’s a juggernaut,” Hirsh-Dickinson said.
“I think there’s value in recognizing these writers as New Hampshire writers.” — Sally Hirsh-Dickinson of N.H. Writers’ Project
Though all four writers are well-known, Hirsh-Dickinson said recognizing them in the hall of fame will further cement their contributions to the state, and country’s, literary landscape.
“I think there’s value in recognizing these writers as New Hampshire writers — that is to say, as writers whose works or whose sensibilities are inflected by the experience of having lived in or been from New Hampshire. They’re not necessarily writers that need to have their profiles raised,” Hirsh-Dickinson said.
For Greene, who teaches at both the high school and college level, the hall of fame will help future generations of New Hampshire readers get familiar with influential authors from their own state.
“If I recite (Frost’s) ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening’ or ‘The Road Not Taken,’ maybe 85 percent of my high-school students will recognize them and half will know the author,” Greene said. “I’m hoping that by celebrating these authors, letting the Granite Staters of today know about them, we can make them more widely known and maybe they can start influencing literacy again.”
The hall of fame will have a physical location in the Southern New Hampshire University library in Manchester. A public induction ceremony will be held on Saturday, March 28 at 4:30 p.m.