Share Your Story as Part of the North Country Anthology
Katharine Eneguess, President of White Mountains Community CollegeHow do you define the North Country? Is it everything above Plymouth, or is it the lands above Franconia, Crawford and Pinkham Notches? Is it a geographically designation, or is it a state of mind? The Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture defines it, loosely, as the region from the Conway area over to District 1 Executive Councilor Ray Burton's hometown of Bath. While residents of the North Country, including writer John Harrigan, can debate this designation from now until the next ice age spreads glaciers over the White Mountains, for the purposes of its North Country Anthology, the Institute draws the line where those mountains bump up on the landscape.
Several years ago the Institute published "Where the Mountain Stands Alone", an anthology writings about, and photos of, the Monadnock region in southern New Hampshire. This book is available in WMCC's Library for reference. The goal of the Institute, founded at Franklin Pierce University in 1996, is "to foster the creation of a place-grounded existence for individuals and communities in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire and beyond."
That "beyond" now includes the North Country, and the Institute, with the financial support of Jane's Trust and the Neil and Louise Tillotson Foundation, has established research hubs in Littleton, Berlin, Conway, and Colebrook in order to gather material for a North Country anthology. Some of the stories gathered are already posted on the project's web page at www.northcountrystories.org.
"We are most interested," Dr. John Harris, director of the institute says, "in stories that help define and characterize the North Country and have 'dirt under the nails.'"
Dr. Harris and Katherine Morgan will be meeting with the faculty here at the White Mountains Community College on April 24. They are looking for non-fiction essays from faculty and students of the college relating to, but not limited to, topics on geology, geography, business, and North Country identity. The session is slated for 1 p.m. and community members are welcome and encouraged to come and share their stories.
As part of the project, Master teacher Katherine Morgan coordinated a week-long summer institute which led to the creation of community heritage learning projects. On May 7 a full-day program of writing and visual arts workshops for high school students will be presented at the Mountain View Grand in Whitefield. Noted New Hampshire writer Ernest Hebert will headline the North Country Writers' Day event, information on which can also be found at the aforementioned website.
We are sure that everyone in our reading audience has a tale or two about his or her particular corner of the North Country. We know we have a story or two in us about some of the interesting characters we've met along the way, and we know that the air we breathe up here is more relaxing than in the more populated portions of New England. You do not have to be a native to the soon to be defined region, just have a great story. I know there are many!
I recommend that you visit the project's website, read in more detail about the project and perhaps you will then be motivated to pen your own essay about your or someone else's life and relationship to the North Country.
And maybe you can answer the question, "What defines the North Country?"
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