AuthorPods is headquartered in beautiful Vermont, a state that has inspired countless writers, authors and poets to live and create within its borders. Some of the most well-known literary works penned in the Green Mountain State include Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House; Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book; Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here; and Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Ralph Ellison wrote the opening lines of his National Book Award winning novel Invisible Man from a barn in Fayston, VT, and E. Annie Proulx wrote her Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Shipping News at her home in Vershire, VT. And that’s just scratching the surface.
Vermont Public Radio previously explored the phenomenon of Vermont’s allure to writers past and present in an excellent episode of the “Brave Little State” podcast, and found our state ranks fifth in the nation for the highest concentration of jobs in the writer/author category. According to those interviewed, the state’s biggest draws include privacy, beautiful settings, plenty of nature, free-spiritedness and strong community values.
With the creative juices clearly flowing freely here in Vermont, here’s a rundown of some of the newest and notable books by local authors. (Apologies in advance to those we’ve left out; please email us at info@authorpods.com if you’d like to add to our list!)
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Dark Waters, by Katherine Arden
Dark Waters (2021) is the latest middle-grade thriller from New York Times bestselling author Katherine Arden, following Small Spaces (2019) and Dead Voices (2020.) The spooky adventures of pals Ollie, Brian and Coco are sure to captivate any young ghost story lover. Arden is also the author of the bestselling Winternight trilogy: The Bear and the Nightingale (2017); The Girl in the Tower (2018); and The Winter of the Witch (2019.)
Hour of the Witch, by Chris Bohjalian
Prolific Vermont author Chris Bohjalian is back with another compelling page-turner. Set in Boston in 1662, Hour of the Witch (2021) features protagonist Mary Deerfield, a young Puritan woman trapped in a violent and abusive marriage. Her attempts to escape lead her to become the target of suspicion and ultimately of accusations of witchcraft.
The Drowning Kind, by Jennifer McMahon
Set in fictional Brandenburg Springs, Vermont, The Drowning Kind (2021) centers on a spring-fed pool with a sinister legacy. Social worker Jackie is summoned to her grandmother’s estate after the body of her mentally unstable sister, Lexie is found floating in the pool. As she goes through her sister’s things, Jackie learns Lexie had been researching the history of the family’s property–and that hers wasn’t the only life claimed by the pool.
Called, by Mark Redmond
Mark Redmond left Madison Avenue behind in 1981 for a far less lucrative but ultimately more rewarding career in helping disadvantaged youth. In his memoir Called, the now 63-year-old executive director of Burlington nonprofit Spectrum Youth & Family Services tells the stories of some of the lives he’s changed that in turn changed his own.
Embassy Wife, by Katie Crouch
Called a “sharply observed satire of the white-savior complex and the poisonous legacy of colonialism,” by the New York Times book review, Katie Crouch’s Embassy Wife is both provocative and funny. Upon following her Fulbright scholar husband to Namibia’s diplomatic community, Amanda Evans is appalled to learn she’s been labeled a “trailing spouse,” the term for partners accompanying diplomats on a posting. Once she’s taken under the wing of fellow trailing spouse Persephone Wilder, antics ensue and secrets are revealed.
Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am, by Julia Cooke
In her fascinating work of nonfiction, journalist-author Julia Cooke explores the legacy of Pan Am’s stewardesses in the 1960s and ‘70s, shedding light on the key roles played by many of them during the Vietnam War. Subject to height, weight and age requirements, Pan Am’s stewardesses were also expected to speak at least two languages and possess a college degree. Through interviews with several former stewardesses, Cooke, the daughter of a Pan Am exec, provides a compelling glimpse of the jet-age era.
The Shame, by Makenna Goodman
In Makenna Goodman’s debut novel The Shame (2020), Alma, her husband and children live on a sprawling farm, seemingly embracing the sort of bucolic country lifestyle most can only imagine. He works as a college professor, while she stays home with the kids. Despite the many joys of motherhood and the simple life, Alma finds herself overwhelmed by tedium, isolation and loneliness–until one day, she leaves it all behind.
Black Is the Body: Stories from My Mother’s Time and Mine, by Emily Bernard
In her remarkable collection of essays, Emily Bernard, the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at UVM, sets out to discover a new way of talking about race. She first conceived of Black is the Body (2019) while recovering in the hospital after being stabbed by a white man. Some of the stories she shares are her own, some are passed down by family members, but all are intimately intertwined with her own experiences as a Black woman in America.
The Bobcat, by Katherine Forbes Riley
Katherine Forbes Riley’s captivating debut novel centers on Laurelie, a reclusive art student struggling to rebuild her life in the aftermath of a sexual assault. While exploring the woods with the young child she babysits, she encounters a wounded, pregnant bobcat and a hiker who’s been tracking the feline for miles. Sensing a kinship, Laurelie and the hiker are gradually drawn to each other, until a plot twist imperils their connection. Newly released in paperback as of June 2021, The Bobcat was long-listed for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize in 2019.
