New Hampshire Writers’ Project announces 2007 awards

Every two years, New Hampshire Writers’ Project honors the work of Granite State writers with the New Hampshire Literary Awards. This year, NHWP recognized the accomplishments of six writers, with awards in children’s literature, fiction, poetry, non-fiction, journalism and lifetime achievement. The Seacoast is home to two of this year’s winners. The 2007 awards will be presented during a ceremony at Southern New Hampshire University on Nov. 17.

Maggie Dietz, of Exeter, won the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry for her book “Perennial Fall.” Dietz is an assistant poetry editor for Slate.com and a frequent lecturer in creative writing at Boston University. Dietz directed the national Favorite Poem Project and has been awarded the Grolier Poetry Prize, as well as fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Phillips Exeter Academy and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Her writing has appeared in the journals “Poetry,” “Ploughshares,” “Agni” and “Salmagundi.”

Portsmouth resident Theodore Weesner won the award for Lifetime Achievement. Weesner is the author of seven novels, including “The Car Thief,” “Harbor Lights,” and “Novemberfest,” and his short fiction has appeared in a number of national publications.

The Wire caught up with Weesner as he was working on passages for a new manuscript. He was notified of the award several weeks ago.

“It’s very satisfying. I’ve been writing for a long time, and it’s kind of cool to have it acknowledged that you’ve had a lifetime and it’s associated with achievement. That’s satisfying,” he said. 

Weesner earned modest acclaim for his 1987 novel “The True Detective.” Based on real events that took place in Michigan during the mid-1970s, the story follows a series of child abductions that resulted in the murder of four young kids. Weenser relocated the story from Michigan to Portsmouth, which allowed him to paint the episode against the backdrop of familiar Port City landscapes. 

Despite his long career, Weesner still experiences a familiar challenge: “The ongoing challenge of wanting to get things just right,” he said. “I’d like to write a novel that would cross over from the current publications shelf to the classics shelf. That’s what all writers strive for, and I’m no different.”

However, Weesner has learned a few lessons. “I’ve learned to have a willingness to rewrite, to accept that there are lots of discoveries yet to be made. Persistence. A lot of people give up early. You’re bound to be rejected and disappointed, but you need to go back, you need to love it and commit to it,” he said.

Since retiring from teaching in 1997, Weesner has been writing full-time. Although he has nothing due out in the near future, he is working on several manuscripts. The advice he gives to aspiring writers is “to do the work everyday. No matter what else you do in your life, give time to your writing.” This advice comes from a man who has given his entire life to the craft of writing. “I love the craft. I love to make things happen on the page that are exciting and significant,” he said.

Other 2007 winners include Julie Baker, of Amherst, who received the Outstanding Work of Children’s Literature award for her book, “The Bread and Roses Strike of 1912.” Rebecca Curtis, currently of Brooklyn, N.Y., won the award for Outstanding Work of Fiction for “Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money.” The award for Outstanding Work of Nonfiction was given to Edith Milton, of Francetown, for her book “The Tiger in the Attic: Memories of the Kindertransport and Growing up English.” Annmarie Timmins, a reporter and editor for the Concord Monitor, received the Donald M. Murray Outstanding Journalism award for her work covering crime and court news. 

The New Hampshire Writers’ Project is a statewide nonprofit literary arts organization, which serves as a resource for writers, publishers, booksellers, literary agents, educators, librarians and readers around New Hampshire. For more information on the awards or to attend the ceremony, visit www.nhwritersproject.org.