Article Archives
Past 'Tale' authors working on new books
Jan. 10, 2009
Special Section
By Ben Beagle
bbeagle@batavianews.com
It's shaping up to be a very exciting year for Vermont writer Howard
Frank Mosher, the featured author for 2004's "A Tale for Three
Counties."
A new novel, Walking to Gatlinburg, is due in September and he said
he is "planning to tour all over the country."
"That will be my main project," Mosher said.
But not his only project.
Mosher is also working on a memoir, The Great American Book Tour, which
chronicles the 100-city road trip that he undertook in 2007 to promote
his last novel, On Kingdom Mountain.
The memoir, Mosher said, will include stories of his first years in
Vermont "and how I came to fall in love with Northern Vermont and
this area that is the Northeast Kingdom."
Mosher and his wife moved to Vermont for what they thought would be
a year of teaching and have stayed 44 years.
This year also finds Mosher with a new publisher - Random House - that
reunites him with Shaye Areheart, editor of A Stranger in the Kingdom.
Walking to Gatlinburg is the story of an epic Civil War-era journey
by 17-year-old Morgan Kinneson from northern Vermont, south through
war-torn America, to the Great Smoky Mountains. Morgan is searching
for his older brother, who is missing in action. The novel includes
scenes along the Erie Canal from near Albany to Utica, and at the Union
prison camp in Elmira.
Mosher's Tale book was Northern Borders.
Here's a quick look at what author tale authors have been doing:
LEIF ENGER (2003, Peace Like a River): Enger's long-awaited second
novel debuted in May. So Brave, Young, and Handsome kept Enger on tour
for a large part of the year. By year's end, the period story of a struggling
writer and aging outlaw had made numerous best book of the year lists,
including those of The Christian Science Monitor and The Washington
Post, and was a finalist for the Christianity Today Book Award for Fiction.
So Brave... was also a 2008 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award Honor
Book for Fiction.
Still popular is Peace Like a River, the pick for an upcoming city-wide
reading event in Austin, Minn. Enger is scheduled to visit that program
in April.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING (2005, In the Bleak Midwinter): Work continues
on what is expected to be the final book in Spen-cer-Fleming's mystery
series featuring the impulsive Rev. Clare Fergusson and small-town Police
Chief Russ Van Alstyne. The Maine author published a serial story online,
"Collect for a Noonday Service," featuring Clare and Russ.
Read it at http://juliaspencerfleming.com/noonday-service.html
JENNIFER DONNELLY (2006, A Northern Light): A trade paperback of The
Winter Rose is due this month. Donnelly continues work on The Wild Rose,
the final book of the Rose trilogy, which takes the saga of the rambunctious
Finnegan family through World War I and into the 1920s. Donnelly says
she is also "working feverishly on a new young adult title"
that is expected out in 2010.
MARK SPRAGG (2007, An Unfinished Life): Currently working on his fourth
book at his home in Cody, Wyoming, Spragg visited Greencastle, Ind.,
in October for the first "Putnam County Reads" community reading
project.
THOMAS MULLEN (2008, The Last Town on Earth): Last year's Tale title
was featured in November for the Stanwood-Camano Together We Read project
near Everett, Wash., a community featured in Mullen's historical novel.
Mullen writes that he relocated from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta and
"what little time for writing I've been able to squirrel away has
been devoted to editing my forthcoming second novel, The Many Deaths
of the Firefly Brothers. Read more at www.thomasmullen.net.
Courtesy of Batavia Newspapers Corporation