Mary Ann Esposito
Authenticity, history, tradition.
Those three words define Mary Ann Esposito and the signature cooking style that has made her one of America's most loved television chefs.
As the creator and host of the nationally televised PBS series, Ciao Italia with Mary Ann Esposito™, Mary Ann has brought those values to millions of Americans. This year, the series celebrates its milestone 23rd season, making it the longest running cooking series in television history.
For Mary Ann, the art of Italian cooking is a way of life. As a little girl growing up in Depew, New York, she watched her two Italian grandmothers create wonderful Italian dishes. Both nonnas, one Sicilian and one Neapolitan, were Italian natives and professional cooks.
This upbringing instilled in Mary Ann a deep appreciation for Italian food and culture. But it was a pivotal trip to Italy that made her ponder hosting a television program to share her love. Thus, Ciao Italia was born.
Through Ciao Italia and appearances on other television programs like The Today Show, Regis and Kelly, QVC, the Food Network, Discovery Channel, and FOX (…not to mention Martha Stewart Radio, RAI International, The Victory Garden, Simply Ming, and so many others!), she has been able to share the cooking lessons she learned as a child with audiences around the world.
Mary Ann has worked beside world-renowned chefs like Julia Child, Todd English, Daisy Martinez, Sara Moulton, Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, and countless others who share the same passion for cooking.
Countless organizations have recognized Mary Ann for her efforts to preserve the traditions surrounding Italian food and culture. Johnson and Wales University presented Mary Ann with their Distinguished Author Award. St. Anselm College bestowed an honorary doctorate for her dedication to teaching and preserving authentic Italian cuisine. Most recently, the Italian Trade Commission further distinguished Mary Ann by naming her a 2010 Hall of Fame honoree.
The Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) honored Mary Ann with the 2009 Lifetime Achievement in the Culinary & Cultural Arts of Italy award. To promote the rich history and customs of Italian Americans, Mary Ann is involved with both OSIA and the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF).
As a NIAF member, Mary Ann has appeared as a spokesperson for the foundation’s public service announcements. She has filmed other NIAF members as guests on her show, including the late NIAF Chairman Dr. A. Kenneth Ciongoli.
Mary Ann’s participation in OSIA and NIAF are part of Mary Ann’s inspiration to create the Mary Ann Esposito Foundation. The goal of the Foundation is to continue the tradition of Italian cooking in the United States by providing scholarships to the next generation of authentic Italian chefs in the United States.
Mary Ann has also written 12 cookbooks. Her most recent, Ciao Italia Family Classics, was released in October of 2011.
In addition, she hosts an annual trip to Italy. This year, travelers discovered the extraordinary cooking of Tuscany with Mary Ann as they traveled with her and experienced hands-on cooking lessons in which she helped them prepare her favorite Tuscan recipes.
Those three words define Mary Ann Esposito and the signature cooking style that has made her one of America's most loved television chefs.
As the creator and host of the nationally televised PBS series, Ciao Italia with Mary Ann Esposito™, Mary Ann has brought those values to millions of Americans. This year, the series celebrates its milestone 23rd season, making it the longest running cooking series in television history.
For Mary Ann, the art of Italian cooking is a way of life. As a little girl growing up in Depew, New York, she watched her two Italian grandmothers create wonderful Italian dishes. Both nonnas, one Sicilian and one Neapolitan, were Italian natives and professional cooks.
This upbringing instilled in Mary Ann a deep appreciation for Italian food and culture. But it was a pivotal trip to Italy that made her ponder hosting a television program to share her love. Thus, Ciao Italia was born.
Through Ciao Italia and appearances on other television programs like The Today Show, Regis and Kelly, QVC, the Food Network, Discovery Channel, and FOX (…not to mention Martha Stewart Radio, RAI International, The Victory Garden, Simply Ming, and so many others!), she has been able to share the cooking lessons she learned as a child with audiences around the world.
Mary Ann has worked beside world-renowned chefs like Julia Child, Todd English, Daisy Martinez, Sara Moulton, Jacques Pepin, Martin Yan, and countless others who share the same passion for cooking.
Countless organizations have recognized Mary Ann for her efforts to preserve the traditions surrounding Italian food and culture. Johnson and Wales University presented Mary Ann with their Distinguished Author Award. St. Anselm College bestowed an honorary doctorate for her dedication to teaching and preserving authentic Italian cuisine. Most recently, the Italian Trade Commission further distinguished Mary Ann by naming her a 2010 Hall of Fame honoree.
The Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) honored Mary Ann with the 2009 Lifetime Achievement in the Culinary & Cultural Arts of Italy award. To promote the rich history and customs of Italian Americans, Mary Ann is involved with both OSIA and the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF).
As a NIAF member, Mary Ann has appeared as a spokesperson for the foundation’s public service announcements. She has filmed other NIAF members as guests on her show, including the late NIAF Chairman Dr. A. Kenneth Ciongoli.
Mary Ann’s participation in OSIA and NIAF are part of Mary Ann’s inspiration to create the Mary Ann Esposito Foundation. The goal of the Foundation is to continue the tradition of Italian cooking in the United States by providing scholarships to the next generation of authentic Italian chefs in the United States.
Mary Ann has also written 12 cookbooks. Her most recent, Ciao Italia Family Classics, was released in October of 2011.
In addition, she hosts an annual trip to Italy. This year, travelers discovered the extraordinary cooking of Tuscany with Mary Ann as they traveled with her and experienced hands-on cooking lessons in which she helped them prepare her favorite Tuscan recipes.
William Hubbell
Hubbell has been fascinated by photography since he was 12 years old and has been a professional photographer for more than 50 years....."specializing at being a generalist."
His life as a photojournalist began in 1960 when he drove round-trip for six months from London to Calcutta, via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Sikkim and Afghanistan. During this time, he did stories for publications including the NY TIMES and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, and interviewed and photographed, among others, the Shah of Iran, Nehru, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Dalai Lama, and the Maharaja of Sikkim.
Following this journey, Bill worked as Director of Photography at an audio-visual subsidiary of Harcourt-Brace publishers. He then established his own studio in Greenwich, CT, where he worked for 20 years on business assignments with clients including General Foods, IBM, Xerox, GTE, Avon, Sotheby's, UPS and many others.
Now in what he calls his "third phase," he has returned to working on photojournalistic books based primarily on the land and people of New England. His book about the history of New England's stone walls, Good Fences, came about "when an editor at Down East Books, in Maine, proposed to me the idea of doing a book on stone walls. I leapt at the chance. He, however, had proposed only a short book with nice pictures. I countered with a proposal that covered the subject much more deeply. "I felt more was needed. I was challenged to capture them in all their glory...proud, stalwart and strong, or in their tumbled, abandoned misery. I had two main goals:
1. I wanted to give the reader enough information about various kinds of walls, why and how they were made, so that their travels through the New England countryside would be more enjoyable and meaningful.
2. I wanted to heighten awareness of the surprisingly fragile aspects of stone walls and the need to treasure and preserve them as definitive and vital aspects of our landscape."
Bill continues to work on diverse projects although he considers himself "semi-retired." He and his wife Jean live in Cumberland Foreside, Maine.
His life as a photojournalist began in 1960 when he drove round-trip for six months from London to Calcutta, via Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India, Kashmir, Sikkim and Afghanistan. During this time, he did stories for publications including the NY TIMES and NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, and interviewed and photographed, among others, the Shah of Iran, Nehru, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Dalai Lama, and the Maharaja of Sikkim.
Following this journey, Bill worked as Director of Photography at an audio-visual subsidiary of Harcourt-Brace publishers. He then established his own studio in Greenwich, CT, where he worked for 20 years on business assignments with clients including General Foods, IBM, Xerox, GTE, Avon, Sotheby's, UPS and many others.
Now in what he calls his "third phase," he has returned to working on photojournalistic books based primarily on the land and people of New England. His book about the history of New England's stone walls, Good Fences, came about "when an editor at Down East Books, in Maine, proposed to me the idea of doing a book on stone walls. I leapt at the chance. He, however, had proposed only a short book with nice pictures. I countered with a proposal that covered the subject much more deeply. "I felt more was needed. I was challenged to capture them in all their glory...proud, stalwart and strong, or in their tumbled, abandoned misery. I had two main goals:
1. I wanted to give the reader enough information about various kinds of walls, why and how they were made, so that their travels through the New England countryside would be more enjoyable and meaningful.
2. I wanted to heighten awareness of the surprisingly fragile aspects of stone walls and the need to treasure and preserve them as definitive and vital aspects of our landscape."
Bill continues to work on diverse projects although he considers himself "semi-retired." He and his wife Jean live in Cumberland Foreside, Maine.
Hillary Nelson
Hillary Nelson, after attending the French Culinary Institute, was a pastry chef in New York City for many years. Before moving to a small farm in New Hampshire in 1994, she studied horticulture at the New York Botanic Garden, where she became interested in growing heirloom fruits, flowers and vegetables, and seed saving. The recipient of several awards for writing, including the NH Writers Project Award for Outstanding Nonfiction, she also holds an MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College. Her writing and photography are featured in her Concord Monitor seasonal food and garden column, “Home Plate,” and can be found at her “Cold Garden Warm Kitchen” website, www.coldgarden.com
Carol Leonard
Carol Leonard is a New Hampshire certified midwife and a writer. She was the first midwife licensed to practice legally in New Hampshire. She is the author of the best-selling memoir,Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart, A Midwife’s Saga, which was awarded the Mother’s Naturally award of excellence for Outstanding Book, 2008.
Leonard’s new book, Bad Beaver Tales, Love and Life on a Sustainable Homestead in DownEast Maine, chronicles her and her husband, Tom Lajoie’s informative and funny journey building their dream homestead on 400 acres of wilderness in Ellsworth, Maine. Bad Beaver is a tree farm where they are doing sustainable harvesting and Tom has a saw mill and a 19th century shingle mill there. Carol and Tom are also raising a hundred beavers which they argue about on a daily basis.
Leonard’s new book, Bad Beaver Tales, Love and Life on a Sustainable Homestead in DownEast Maine, chronicles her and her husband, Tom Lajoie’s informative and funny journey building their dream homestead on 400 acres of wilderness in Ellsworth, Maine. Bad Beaver is a tree farm where they are doing sustainable harvesting and Tom has a saw mill and a 19th century shingle mill there. Carol and Tom are also raising a hundred beavers which they argue about on a daily basis.
Addison Wiggin
Addison Wiggin is the executive publisher of Agora Financial, LLC, a fiercely independent economic forecasting and financial research firm based in Baltimore, Md. He’s the creator and editorial director of Agora Financial’s daily 5 Min. Forecast and editorial director of Agora’s flagship publication The Daily Reckoning.
Wiggin is the founder of Agora Entertainment, and executive producer and co-writer of the highly acclaimed documentary film I.O.U.S.A., which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the 2009 Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature and was also shortlisted for a 2009 Academy Award. He is the author of the companion book of the film I.O.U.S.A. and a three-time New York Times best-selling author.
In late 2010, Mr. Wiggin became the president of Laissez Faire Books, the nation’s premier Libertarian bookseller, when the company was acquired by Agora Financial.
As such, he is credited by Newsmax.com for “calling it first and calling it right” with respect to the current and ongoing global financial crisis. Wiggin offers his analysis “with confidence and steady aplomb,” says The New York Times Magazine, and offers “a clear, cogent and compelling primer on contemporary American economics,” according to the Toronto Star.
The film I.O.U.S.A. was inspired by the international best-sellers Financial Reckoning Day andEmpire of Debt, which Mr. Wiggin co-authored with William Bonner in 2003 and 2005, respectively. To the delight of many, both books were fully revised and released in the summer of 2009. Financial Reckoning Day Fallout: The 10th Anniversary Edition is a timely guide to protecting and growing your wealth in this turbulent financial climate. Casting a wide-angle lens through history, the second edition of The New Empire of Debt depicts the rise — and fall — of our epic financial bubble.
Wiggin also authored the international best-seller The Demise of the Dollar… and Why It’s Even Better for Your Investments, which was revised, updated and re-released in January 2008.
Addison is a native of Stratham, N.H., founded in 1630 by Thomas Wiggin, a direct ancestor. But perhaps as an accidental consequence, he gained his most clear insight into free market capitalism while following the legendary rock band The Grateful Dead. Then, after several years as a “ski bum” in Telluride, Co., he earned an undergraduate degree in English and French from Western State College of Colorado in Gunnison and a master’s degree in philosophy from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. and Annapolis, Md.
His career at Agora, Inc. – the world’s leading financial newsletter publisher – began in 1993, when he was trained as a copywriter by industry legends Bill Bonner and Michael Masterson, ultimately earning the prestigious and coveted Ouzilly Award for Writing Excellence at a ceremony in Ouzilly, France, in 2003.
In the ensuing 16 years, Addison has been an avid student, writer and commentator on financial markets and governments. He spent a year in the fundraising and communications department at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and several years living and traveling abroad —including a four year-stint in Paris, where he worked side by side with Bill Bonner establishing Agora’s French subsidiary, Publications Agora, and founding the U.S. and U.K. editions of The Daily Reckoning in London.
In 2004, Wiggin returned to Baltimore to assume the helm of Agora Financial, LLC, one of Agora Inc.’s largest U.S. based businesses and publisher of a number of award-winning investment newsletters, including Outstanding Investments, ranked #1 by Hulbert Financial Digest for coverage of the natural resource and precious metals markets. Agora Financial also publishes the maverick e-letters Whiskey & Gunpowder, Penny Sleuth and Rude Awakening. As Executive Publisher of the group, Wiggin has forged successful relationships with the leading publishers in the newsletter industry, including Casey Research, Prudent Bear, Motley Fool, Forbes, The Oxford Club, Stansberry & Associates, Newsmax.com, Weiss Research, Financial Sense Online, Eagle Publishing, John Mauldin, EverBank, Asset Marketing Strategies and others. He also founded The Agora Financial Reserve, a members-only exclusive club of Agora Financial’s most active — and, consequently, highest net worth — readers.
Through it all, Addison has acquired a unique macroeconomic perspective on the markets. His body of published work has been translated in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. In a joint venture with EquityMaster.com, a Mumbai-based investment publisher, he’s currently developing a worldwide network of analysts for an innovative service covering the BRIC — Brazil, Russia, India and China — economies. And working closely with contacts in Dubai, UAE, to establish the global Richebacher Society. In 2009, he will begin work on a new documentary exploring wealth, risk and entrepreneurship in an increasingly difficult political environment in the West.
Wiggin’s work has brought critical acclaim from The New York Times Magazine, CNN/Money,The Economist, Worth, The New York Times, The Washington Post and others. Addison has been seen on CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Fox Business, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV and many others. He has presented his ideas at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and at both the Democratic and Republican national party conventions during the 2008 campaign, as well as in speaking engagements in New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Beijing, Paris, London, Bonn, Sydney and other places. His work has included interviews with many of the world’s leading financial and economic thinkers, from all points of view, including Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, Robert Rubin, Paul O’Neill, Paul Volcker, former comptroller general of the U.S. David Walker, Arthur Laffer and others.
Each year, Wiggin “and the economic brain trust at Agora Financial” (Baltimore Sun) convene a who’s who of investment analysts at the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, B.C. The event in 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of both The Daily Reckoning and The AF Investment Symposium. Past speakers have included Steve Forbes, Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Rick Rule, and James Howard Kunstler. On July 20-23, 2010, many of these speakers return. In addition, Wiggin will welcome new speakers like, President and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, Peter Schiff and Eric Kraus, an American-born, Moscow-based fund manager that will offer a completely unique perspective on international investing.
Wiggin is the founder of Agora Entertainment, and executive producer and co-writer of the highly acclaimed documentary film I.O.U.S.A., which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and the 2009 Critics Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature and was also shortlisted for a 2009 Academy Award. He is the author of the companion book of the film I.O.U.S.A. and a three-time New York Times best-selling author.
In late 2010, Mr. Wiggin became the president of Laissez Faire Books, the nation’s premier Libertarian bookseller, when the company was acquired by Agora Financial.
As such, he is credited by Newsmax.com for “calling it first and calling it right” with respect to the current and ongoing global financial crisis. Wiggin offers his analysis “with confidence and steady aplomb,” says The New York Times Magazine, and offers “a clear, cogent and compelling primer on contemporary American economics,” according to the Toronto Star.
The film I.O.U.S.A. was inspired by the international best-sellers Financial Reckoning Day andEmpire of Debt, which Mr. Wiggin co-authored with William Bonner in 2003 and 2005, respectively. To the delight of many, both books were fully revised and released in the summer of 2009. Financial Reckoning Day Fallout: The 10th Anniversary Edition is a timely guide to protecting and growing your wealth in this turbulent financial climate. Casting a wide-angle lens through history, the second edition of The New Empire of Debt depicts the rise — and fall — of our epic financial bubble.
Wiggin also authored the international best-seller The Demise of the Dollar… and Why It’s Even Better for Your Investments, which was revised, updated and re-released in January 2008.
Addison is a native of Stratham, N.H., founded in 1630 by Thomas Wiggin, a direct ancestor. But perhaps as an accidental consequence, he gained his most clear insight into free market capitalism while following the legendary rock band The Grateful Dead. Then, after several years as a “ski bum” in Telluride, Co., he earned an undergraduate degree in English and French from Western State College of Colorado in Gunnison and a master’s degree in philosophy from St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. and Annapolis, Md.
His career at Agora, Inc. – the world’s leading financial newsletter publisher – began in 1993, when he was trained as a copywriter by industry legends Bill Bonner and Michael Masterson, ultimately earning the prestigious and coveted Ouzilly Award for Writing Excellence at a ceremony in Ouzilly, France, in 2003.
In the ensuing 16 years, Addison has been an avid student, writer and commentator on financial markets and governments. He spent a year in the fundraising and communications department at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., and several years living and traveling abroad —including a four year-stint in Paris, where he worked side by side with Bill Bonner establishing Agora’s French subsidiary, Publications Agora, and founding the U.S. and U.K. editions of The Daily Reckoning in London.
In 2004, Wiggin returned to Baltimore to assume the helm of Agora Financial, LLC, one of Agora Inc.’s largest U.S. based businesses and publisher of a number of award-winning investment newsletters, including Outstanding Investments, ranked #1 by Hulbert Financial Digest for coverage of the natural resource and precious metals markets. Agora Financial also publishes the maverick e-letters Whiskey & Gunpowder, Penny Sleuth and Rude Awakening. As Executive Publisher of the group, Wiggin has forged successful relationships with the leading publishers in the newsletter industry, including Casey Research, Prudent Bear, Motley Fool, Forbes, The Oxford Club, Stansberry & Associates, Newsmax.com, Weiss Research, Financial Sense Online, Eagle Publishing, John Mauldin, EverBank, Asset Marketing Strategies and others. He also founded The Agora Financial Reserve, a members-only exclusive club of Agora Financial’s most active — and, consequently, highest net worth — readers.
Through it all, Addison has acquired a unique macroeconomic perspective on the markets. His body of published work has been translated in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. In a joint venture with EquityMaster.com, a Mumbai-based investment publisher, he’s currently developing a worldwide network of analysts for an innovative service covering the BRIC — Brazil, Russia, India and China — economies. And working closely with contacts in Dubai, UAE, to establish the global Richebacher Society. In 2009, he will begin work on a new documentary exploring wealth, risk and entrepreneurship in an increasingly difficult political environment in the West.
Wiggin’s work has brought critical acclaim from The New York Times Magazine, CNN/Money,The Economist, Worth, The New York Times, The Washington Post and others. Addison has been seen on CNN, ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Fox Business, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV and many others. He has presented his ideas at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and at both the Democratic and Republican national party conventions during the 2008 campaign, as well as in speaking engagements in New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Beijing, Paris, London, Bonn, Sydney and other places. His work has included interviews with many of the world’s leading financial and economic thinkers, from all points of view, including Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, Robert Rubin, Paul O’Neill, Paul Volcker, former comptroller general of the U.S. David Walker, Arthur Laffer and others.
Each year, Wiggin “and the economic brain trust at Agora Financial” (Baltimore Sun) convene a who’s who of investment analysts at the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver, B.C. The event in 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of both The Daily Reckoning and The AF Investment Symposium. Past speakers have included Steve Forbes, Jim Rogers, Doug Casey, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Rick Rule, and James Howard Kunstler. On July 20-23, 2010, many of these speakers return. In addition, Wiggin will welcome new speakers like, President and Chief Global Strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, Peter Schiff and Eric Kraus, an American-born, Moscow-based fund manager that will offer a completely unique perspective on international investing.
Donald Hall
Donald Hall has written twenty books of poetry. He grew up in Connecticut and spent summers with his grandparents in Wilmot. With his wife the poet, Jane Kenyon, he moved to the family farmhouse in 1975. He was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2006 to 2007. In 2011, President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Arts.
Maxine Kumin
Maxine Kumin's 17th poetry collection, Where I Live: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2011. Her newest children’s books are Oh, Harry, about a horse with a prehensile nose, illustrated by the well-known Northampton artist Barry Moser, andWhat Color Is Caesar? about a dog who wants to know if he is all black with many white spots or vice versa. Kumin’s awards include the Pulitzer and Ruth Lilly Poetry Prizes, the Poets’ Prize, and the Harvard Arts and Robert Frost Medals. A former US poet laureate, she and her husband live on a farm in the Mink Hills where they raised horses for forty years and enjoyed the companionship of several rescued dogs.
Howard Frank Mosher
Howard Frank Mosher is the author of ten novels and two works of nonfiction. He was honored with the New England Booksellers’ President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts and is the recipient of the Literature Award bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His novel A Stranger in the Kingdom won the New England Book Award for fiction and was later made into a movie, as were his novels Disappearances and Where the Rivers Flow North.
In a review of his latest novel, Walking to Gatlinburg, the Associated Press called Howard Frank Mosher “a superb storyteller who is the closest thing we have to Mark Twain.” With a career that includes ten novels, two works of nonfiction, a Literature Award bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New England Book Award for fiction, and countless other awards and accolades, Mosher has established himself as one of the leading contributors to the literature of twentieth-century America.
Everything was challenged, however, when Mosher learned he had prostate cancer. A few months before his sixty-fifth birthday, he began treatment, enduring forty-six intensive radiation treatments. Faced with what he calls “this reminder of our common human mortality,” Mosher decided to embark on a 100-city, cross-country tour of many of America’s best independent book stores, a journey he chronicles in The Great Northern Express:: A Writer’s Journey Home. In his twenty-year-old Chevy Celebrity, affectionately dubbed “The Loser Cruiser,” Mosher set out on a monumental road trip across twenty-first-century America. Making the journey alone on those long, solitary drives, he found tremendous comfort—and some great laughs—reflecting on his life and his career as a writer. Mosher invites us into the passenger seat to retrace those moments, sharing with us his personal story set in a rollicking three-month, 20,000-mile sojourn. We stand alongside Mosher as he comes face-to-face with an angry mother moose in a parking lot, swigs beers with the prophet known as the “West Texas Jesus,” and enjoys some not-so-restful nights of sleep at a number of roadside motels. We also get an intimate look inside Mosher’s fifty-year marriage to his wife and muse, Phillis, his teacher by day, struggling writer by night beginnings, and the experiences that have shaped Mosher into the beloved storyteller he is today.
In a review of his latest novel, Walking to Gatlinburg, the Associated Press called Howard Frank Mosher “a superb storyteller who is the closest thing we have to Mark Twain.” With a career that includes ten novels, two works of nonfiction, a Literature Award bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New England Book Award for fiction, and countless other awards and accolades, Mosher has established himself as one of the leading contributors to the literature of twentieth-century America.
Everything was challenged, however, when Mosher learned he had prostate cancer. A few months before his sixty-fifth birthday, he began treatment, enduring forty-six intensive radiation treatments. Faced with what he calls “this reminder of our common human mortality,” Mosher decided to embark on a 100-city, cross-country tour of many of America’s best independent book stores, a journey he chronicles in The Great Northern Express:: A Writer’s Journey Home. In his twenty-year-old Chevy Celebrity, affectionately dubbed “The Loser Cruiser,” Mosher set out on a monumental road trip across twenty-first-century America. Making the journey alone on those long, solitary drives, he found tremendous comfort—and some great laughs—reflecting on his life and his career as a writer. Mosher invites us into the passenger seat to retrace those moments, sharing with us his personal story set in a rollicking three-month, 20,000-mile sojourn. We stand alongside Mosher as he comes face-to-face with an angry mother moose in a parking lot, swigs beers with the prophet known as the “West Texas Jesus,” and enjoys some not-so-restful nights of sleep at a number of roadside motels. We also get an intimate look inside Mosher’s fifty-year marriage to his wife and muse, Phillis, his teacher by day, struggling writer by night beginnings, and the experiences that have shaped Mosher into the beloved storyteller he is today.
