New England Authors & Writers: Six States of Literary Inspiration
Writers Poets Storytellers and Novelists
Welcome to New England Living Magazine’s literary journey — a celebration of the remarkable writers who have called this corner of America home. From coastal villages and mountain towns to historic cities and quiet forests, New England has long inspired some of the greatest storytellers, poets, and thinkers in American history.
This is more than a list — it’s a tour through six states of imagination. Along the way, you’ll meet the authors who defined eras, discover the books they wrote, and see how the region continues to inspire today’s most creative voices.
Hunting With Reverence ~ Seeking the Spirt of the Hunt
A collection of short stories, poems, journals and miscellaneous information gathered over forty years of hunting and time spent simply wandering the woods of Maine. These writings are the direct result of childhood readings, Boy Scouts, family camping and mountain hiking in my youth, coupled with a spiritual journey that began with Gospel parables learned in Sunday School and youthful explorations of numerous educational, even inspiring, but ultimately "not right for me" faith traditions. An inspiring, entertaining publication by Rev. Ken Turley.
Read Hunting With Reverence at Amazon.com
Vinnie's Vermont Life presents, Love, Heartache, and Laughs: A Book of Poetry
Vermont poet Vinnie DiBernardo invites you along for the ride on his quest for true love as he navigates the viscerally emotional rollercoaster that journeys through the soul. His reasonably priced book affords the reader a glimpse into the heart of interconnected relationships.
Love, Heartache, and Laughs: A Book of Poetry
Massachusetts – The Literary Heart of New England
Massachusetts is where American literature came of age. Its cities and small towns produced transcendentalists, poets, and novelists who shaped how the world reads and thinks.
The Concord Circle: Transcendental Thinkers
In the 1800s, Concord, Massachusetts became a meeting ground for minds that changed the country.
Ralph Waldo Emerson penned Self-Reliance and Nature, essays that inspired Americans to trust their own thoughts. His neighbor, Henry David Thoreau, took that philosophy into the woods, producing Walden, a masterpiece of simplicity and reflection.
Louisa May Alcott, writing just down the lane at Orchard House, brought us Little Women — a tender, revolutionary story about family, creativity, and womanhood. And nearby, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrestled with Puritan guilt and morality in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables.
This remarkable community proved that ideas could be as fertile as the New England soil itself.
Poets and Dreamers
Boston and Cambridge nurtured Emily Dickinson, the Amherst recluse whose compressed, luminous poems (“Because I could not stop for Death…”) changed modern verse forever.
Later, Robert Frost, though he spent much of his life in New Hampshire and Vermont, taught and wrote at Amherst College, capturing New England’s rural voice in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and The Road Not Taken.
Modern Massachusetts Voices
In the 20th century, Massachusetts continued to shape literary thought.
Sylvia Plath, born in Jamaica Plain, wrote The Bell Jar, a haunting semi-autobiographical novel exploring mental health and identity.
Jack Kerouac of Lowell hit the road in On the Road, channeling jazz, youth, and rebellion in his Beat-era classic.
Today, writers like Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic) and Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) keep the state’s storytelling spirit alive — weaving mystery, emotion, and place into modern literature.
Maine – Where Imagination Meets the Edge of the Map
From rocky coasts to dark pine forests, Maine’s landscapes have a way of getting under your skin — and into your imagination.
The Master of Horror
You can’t talk about Maine without mentioning Stephen King. Born and raised in Durham and long settled in Bangor, King turned small-town life into the backdrop for supernatural fear and psychological truth. Carrie, The Shining, It, and The Stand all bear Maine’s signature fog, woods, and moral complexity. King’s fictional towns, like Castle Rock and Derry, are just as real to readers as Bar Harbor or Bangor.
Beyond the Horror
But Maine’s literary spirit is far broader. Tess Gerritsen, author of The Surgeon and Rizzoli & Isles, brings medical and criminal thrillers to life with coastal tension. Elizabeth Strout, born in Portland, crafted Olive Kitteridge, a Pulitzer Prize–winning collection that captures small-town Maine with honesty and grace.
Maine’s writers understand the rhythm of isolation — the silence before a snowstorm, the lapping of waves against granite shores. Whether you’re reading poetry by Richard Blanco or memoirs by local authors, Maine’s literature carries the scent of pine and salt air.
New Hampshire – The Quiet Voice That Echoes Forever
New Hampshire’s mountains, lakes, and stubborn independence have shaped voices of strength and introspection.
Frost, The Poet of the Hills
Robert Frost lived in Derry, New Hampshire, for many years. It was there that he wrote Mending Wall and Birches. His poems captured not only the New England countryside but the soul of rural life — its solitude, its dignity, and its neighborly fences.
Modern Storytellers
John Irving, who attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, gained international fame with The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany. His novels often balance humor and heartbreak, mixing the moral questions of modern America with the physical beauty of New England.
In the seacoast city of Portsmouth, poets like Diannely Antigua are carrying the torch forward — bringing diverse, vibrant voices to the Granite State’s literary landscape.
New Hampshire writing often feels like its geography: quiet at first glance, but alive with power beneath the surface.
Vermont – Words in the Wilderness
Vermont is a state that reads like poetry — green hills, covered bridges, and seasons that demand attention. Its writers have always reflected that sense of introspection and authenticity.
The Poet’s Vermont
Robert Frost’s spirit still lingers in Vermont’s fields, where he spent decades writing and teaching. His Stone House in South Shaftsbury remains a pilgrimage site for literary travelers.
Howard Frank Mosher, known for A Stranger in the Kingdom and Where the Rivers Flow North, painted northern Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom with compassion and grit.
Julia Alvarez, who taught at Middlebury College, brought both her Dominican heritage and Vermont sensibility into novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.
And for those who love the strange and mysterious, Joseph A. Citro’s folklore collections, such as Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries capture Vermont’s supernatural side.
Vermont’s authors share a connection to nature, community, and truth — writing that feels honest as the maple syrup on a winter morning. Vermont writers, poets, and authors are as unique as Vermont products.
Connecticut – Stories of Suburbia and the Sea
Connecticut may be known for polished towns and ivy-covered walls, but its writers have explored the complexities beneath that polished surface.
Classic and Contemporary Voices
Harriet Beecher Stowe, who lived in Hartford, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the book that helped ignite the American abolitionist movement. Across town, Mark Twain penned The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in his grand Hartford home — still one of the state’s most beloved literary landmarks.
In modern times, Wally Lamb, author of She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, writes with empathy and depth about ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges. His novels remind us that the emotional landscapes of Connecticut are as vivid as its shorelines.
Connecticut’s literature captures the contradictions of the state itself — elegant yet raw, historic yet modern, refined yet human.
Rhode Island – The Smallest State with the Strangest Stories
Rhode Island proves that size doesn’t measure imagination. The Ocean State has inspired storytellers who embrace its quirks, mysteries, and maritime soul.
The Providence Dreamer
Few authors are more deeply tied to their hometown than H. P. Lovecraft was to Providence. His tales of cosmic horror — The Call of Cthulhu, The Shadow over Innsmouth, At the Mountains of Madness — were filled with New England landscapes warped by imagination. His influence reaches far beyond his own century, haunting writers and readers to this day.
Voices of the Present
Rhode Island has also nurtured contemporary talents like Ann Hood, whose novels The Knitting Circle and The Obituary Writer explore love, loss, and resilience in distinctly Rhode Island settings.
From Lovecraft’s shadowed mansions to Hood’s coastal towns, Rhode Island’s writers remind us that the smallest places can hold the biggest stories.
The Spirit of New England Literature
What ties all these authors together isn’t just geography — it’s sensibility. New England writing is rooted in reflection, resilience, and honesty. It’s the sound of waves against rock, snow under boots, leaves turning in an old cemetery. It’s the struggle between faith and doubt, community and solitude, tradition and change.
From Alcott’s moral warmth to King’s creeping dread, from Dickinson’s introspection to Strout’s quiet empathy — New England’s writers prove that this region is not only the birthplace of American literature, but its conscience.
As you explore these stories, consider planning your own New England Literary Tour. Visit author homes, walk Walden Pond, drive through Frost’s countryside, and end your day in an independent bookstore — perhaps the one just down your street.
Because in New England, books aren’t just written here. They’re inspired here.
For New England travel inspiration, bookstores, inns, and vacation ideas, bookmark New England Living Magazine.
Attractions | Inns | Resorts | Hotels
Vacation Rentals |
Real Estate | Restaurants
Camping | Business | Pet Friendly Lodging
