Following Through on Merrimack Valley Literary Promise
Posted by PaulM on 30 Aug 2008 at 03:51 pm | Tagged as: Poetry, Uncategorized
Writing in the Boston Globe Magazine on October 8, 2000, Neil Miller made this observation: “Increasingly, and with characteristic lack of fanfare, the Merrimack Valley is gaining literary visibility. And its writers are garnering various honors as well. [Andre] Dubus III’s novel House of Sand and Fog was a 1999 nominee for the National Book Award. [Jane]Brox’s Five Thousand Days Like This One was a 1999 National Book Critics Circle finalist in nonfiction. Andover novelist Mary McGarry Morris’s Songs in Ordinary Time was the June 1997 Oprah Book Club selection.” Fast-forward to today and pick up a copy of the Sept-Oct issue of Poets and Writers Magazine, the main publication for creative writers in the country, with a circulation of 80,000. Readers will find a full-page ad with the headline “A River of Writers: October is Literary Month in the Greater Merrimack Valley.” The page includes information about four major literary events coming in October. The annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! festival (Oct 2-5), the Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Lowell (Oct 10-12), the Concord Festival of Authors in Concord and Lowell (Oct 15 - Nov 2), and the Robert Frost Festival in Lawrence (Oct 25). The ad appears thanks to the Greater Merrimack Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau, especially executive director Deb Belanger. This is a big step in identifying our region as a literary hot spot in New England and the nation. There is much to be gained in promoting the literary heritage (Bradstreet, Whittier, Larcom, Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne, Frost, Kerouac, Dubus II, and more) and presenting today’s literary talent in this time when more and more people are realizing that creative assets are natural resources. A river of writers, then and now.
Lets also not forget the growing body of nonfiction writers in the region too. UMass Lowell and other colleges and universities in the region have professors who are producing major work as well. Maybe time to showcase this aspect of the creative economy more and to have particular spots in all area bookstores for this work too. To add to the culture fest, the remarkable film “Traces of the Trade’ about the New England region’s role in the slave trade, will be shown in downtown Lowell on the afternoon of Saturday Oct. 25. More details forthcoming soon, but the event will include a walking tour of historical sites in Lowell and discussion that raises issues concerning Lowell, cotton textiles, and reliance on slave labor. The Merrimack River valley stacks up extremely well against other regions of the country promoting their cultural highways. And, the more this is marketed the better. Cheers!
Bob’s right about the range of writers. Nonfiction titles, scholarly works, course texts, magazine and journal articles, web publications–all of these are part of the writing and publishing renaissance in Lowell and environs. The artists at Western Avenue invented a prototype vending machine for art objects. Can have book and music CD and film DVD vending machines in the cafes, coffee bars, pubs, shops, and other gathering places and hot spots around Lowell and valley? Creative Economy Vending Machines. Make it easier for the public, for readers and researchers, to get some of the books and other items that are hard to find at the chain stores. New Age self-service pushcarts with creative products.
Let us not forget local writers Jat Atkinson and Dave Daniel. It is long over due that Lowell should have a book fair(Kerouac book festival) with national authors from all over the country reading and signing their books. The venue could be at the Tsongas area for a week-end.