The New York State Writers Institute mourns the passing of novelist Howard Frank Mosher who delighted Albany audiences on November 1st, 2016. Mosher was widely celebrated as "the voice of Vermont." Born in the Catskills, he spent much of his childhood in Altamont, New York.From yesterday's Vermont Public Radio obituary: "Acclaimed Vermont author Howard Frank Mosher has died. Mosher, 74, succumbed to cancer Sunday morning at his home in Irasburg.
His stories celebrated the Northeast Kingdom as the last bastion of a people and a way of life that has all but disappeared from Vermont." More.
Listen to Joe Donahue's Nov. 1st WAMC interview.
More about Mosher's visit to the Writers Institute.
From the Oct. 2016 Times Union profile of Mosher by Joe Stalvey and Jack Rightmyer: "I was actually born in the Catskill Mountains, and I lived there till I was 11 or 12," he says, "and then we moved to Altamont, where I attended grade six through nine. Many of my stories also reach back to that time in my boyhood."He fondly recalls fishing in the Helderberg Mountains and going to the Altamont Fair every summer. "The description of the county fair in my newest book 'God's Kingdom' is how I remember the Altamont Fair," he says. "("God's Kingdom") is pretty autobiographical," Mosher says. "Jim is based on me, and like him, I always wanted to be a writer. Most of the characters are based on my friends and relatives, including my wife. The newspaper editor is based on my dad, who was a teacher and once the principal of Altamont High School. He was the principal the first two years of Guilderland High School." More.
