When looking for inspiration, these authors have looked to what they’re familiar with – from personal struggles with opiate addiction, to family, to the places they grew up, they explore life and death.
Shelly Girdner, a graduate and now lecturer of the University of New Hampshire, recently released her first full-length collection of poetry You Were That White Bird. Through three sections, she looks at the lifespan of a relationship.
In the first section, “The way desire works,” there are poems such as “AD + SG 4 ever,” “Archetypal Renderings of the Male-Female Relationship,” “Prequel: Hansel and Gretal’s stepmother,” and “Two is.” The poems explore the beginning of love.
The second section, “The blue hood,” with verses such as “God speaks to Adam,” “The first birth,” “Passover,” and “Christmas Eve,” is filled with biblical allusion. It focuses on birth, creation and life, but also death.
The final section shares a name with the collection, “Your Were That White Bird.” While bird imagery is sprinkled throughout the collection, this section has the most, with poems such as “Avian,” “Sky,” “The eggs,” and “Dear chick, dear hen-speck.”
Girdner will share an evening of verse at
Gibson’s Bookstore on June 9 at 5:30. She will be joined by Tom Haines and Meghan Heckman, who will share some of their work, too.
After working on the biography for 40 to 50 years, Jane Ruggles Pinel, 88, of Hillsboro, has finished her book. She recently released Dolly: Her story, a biography of her mother, Dolly Anne ElHatton.
Scattered with historical and family photos, the book chronicles Dolly’s life from her birth in New Brunswick, Canada, through her 98 years.
Pinel had recordings of her mother’s story, so some of the book in Dolly’s own words, indicated with italics. Other parts are the author’s own descriptions of retellings of the stories her mother shared.
Dolly was the second of 10 children, who lost both their parents young.
Next, Dolly headed from her farming town to the city of Boston and trained to be a nurse. She witnessed World War I, the Spanish Flu Epidemic, the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression and World War II.
Dolly’s story is the history of America’s 20th Century, but through her own experiences and commitment to her family.
Like Pinel, Nancy Barton Carter Clough of Concord draws on inspiration and history of her family for her new book, Searching for Barton Carter.
Barton Carter was Clough’s uncle who in 1936 went to study abroad in Europe and ended up fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
Carter rebuked his wealthy family’s wishes and volunteered his services bring orphans and refugees to safety. His efforts got him killed at just 23 years old.
His work led to more than 4,000 lives being saved.
Clough’s tome is nearly 800 pages of her own narrative and reproductions of diary entries, letters, brochures, newspaper clippings and even children’s drawings.
“My family seldom mentioned Barton’s name when I was a child, and it appeared to me that my uncle’s life was somehow secretive and mysterious,” Clough said. “As I got older and heard portions of stories, I quickly learned what an astonishing person he was and had to share that with more people.”
The book delves into Carter’s beliefs and those of the family he left behind in the United States.
Mira Gibson, formerly of Sanbornton, released three mystery novels under her byline after years of ghostwriting other novels.
In Daddy Soda, the main character must face her step-father and her past after her estranged mother is kidnapped in a marshy New Hampshire town.
In Rock Spider, a social worker dealing with a reclusive, mysterious family delves into the night their daughter committed suicide. The case might just connect with the night she and her sister crashed the car into the lake, her sister dying in the murky waters.
The final novel is Tar Heart. Center Harbor police Detective Lucas York is called to investigate the murder of a woman whose body is found trapped under the ice of Squam Lake, who happens to look a lot like a woman he shared a lustful night with long ago. To make matters worse, she’s not the murder’s last victim.
If you’re looking for a mystery in a familiar landscape, look no further than these three standalone thrillers.
Christopher Spinney, 31, of Conway struggled with drug addiction beginning as a teenager, dropping out of school in the 10th grade.
When he was 28, Spinney managed to transition into recovery and find abstinence from opiates after an arrest on drug charges.
He recently released several books on his journey and struggle with addiction: Damaged Tomorrow, Recovery is Possible, Buprenorphine and the truth about Suboxone and Heroin Addict to Life.
Spinney hopes that others can use his books to beat addiction. He also follows drug addiction-related news at opiatesnomore.wordpress.com.
Veteran author C.J. Daniels of Windham launched a new series “Dark Frontier,” with Evolution’s End.
Politics and family collide when Captain Kate Dante is undercover on Mars after being branded as a traitor. She’s looking into a rash of inexplicable deaths and missing persons. Meanwhile, her father and brother are also on Mars looking into connections between disappearances and Striker Industries, a giant corporation.
And while responding to a distress call, First Officer of the Bonaventure Kristin Dante and her crew are threatened by alien horror.
Events turn darker as Kate tries to clear her name and the family battles evil and their own dysfunction.