Stories About This Place, our storytelling event that brings local luminaries together to share stories about living and working in New Hampshire, returns to the Peterborough Town House on Friday, March 22nd, 2024 from 6:30-8:30pm. This event is FREE to attend, click here to register!
We have an incredible lineup of speakers and entertainment for you this year. From local authors who chronicle the culture of the Monadnock region, to hardworking farmers who grow the food that ends up in our grocery stores and restaurants. Meet the speakers below!
Rebecca Rule
Author and host NHPBS
rebeccarule.com
Rebecca Rule hosted the New Hampshire Authors Series for ten years on NHPBS and now hosts Our Hometown on NHPBS. She’s been telling stories in New England, especially New Hampshire, for more than thirty years. She hasn’t visited every town in the Granite State but has found her way to many of them — speaking at libraries, historical societies, church groups, and charitable organizations. She likes collecting stories because “they’re free and you don’t have to dust them."
Her books include N is for New Hampshire, an ABC book with photographs by Scott Snyder; The Iciest Diciest Scariest Sled Ride Ever!,a picture book illustrated by Jennifer Thermes; Headin’ for the Rhubarb, A NH Dictionary (well, kinda); and The Best Revenge, which was named one of five essential NH Books by New Hampshire Magazine. Her latest book is That Reminds Me of a Funny Story, Hobblebush Press, and is releasing a new book.
Ernest Hebert
Author
Ernest Hebert is a Keene native and currently lives in Westmoreland. He is the author of 11 published novels, and two non-fiction books. In 2006, The New England Booksellers Association named him their fiction author of the year. In 2005, his novel Spoonwood received an IPPY (Independent Book Publishers) award for best regional novel in the Northeast. Mad Boys (1993) and The Old American (2000) were named "outstanding fiction" by the New Hampshire Writers' Project. Live Free or Die was a New York Times "notable book" for 1989. His first novel, The Dogs March (1979), was cited for excellence by the Hemingway Foundation and remains in print after more than 40 years. These days Ernie is working on The Methuselah Protocol, the ninth novel of the Darby Chronicles, which features the cabin he’ll be discussing at the Stories event.
Tyler Rich
Farmer
partnersgardens.com
Tyler Rich and his wife Jenna met in Chicago in 2015 and traded their fast-paced city lives of theater and business careers for a farm internship program at Full Sun Farm in NC. The couple moved to Tyler's hometown in New Hampshire in 2017 and started Partners' Gardens on the same land his parents homesteaded for nearly 30 years. Tyler and Jenna strive to strengthen the local food movement by getting locally grown produce into restaurants and kitchens across the Monadnock region. They focus on organic and no-till methods, cover cropping and amendments, and thriving soil health. In his spare time, Tyler loves to cook extravagant meals using fresh ingredients.
Bob Brown & Juliana Stevens
Bob Brown grew up on Long Island with summers on a small family farm in Mill Hollow in Alstead, NH.
It was there he first fell in love with Chase’s Mill in the summer of 1953. After graduating from Dartmouth, he spent time in engineering and science related work before settling on a career in education. He was a teacher and administrator for 35 years.
Juliana Stevens grew up in Alstead Center on a small family farm. Following graduation from Plymouth State College she began 35 years of teaching students from kindergarten through college. Her family has over 200 acres in conservancy in Alstead and Walpole.
In their retirement Juliana and Bob have become small maple sugar producers in Alstead.
Ben Cosgrove
bencosgrove.com
Ben Cosgrove is a traveling composer-performer whose music explores themes of landscape, place, and environment. Ben has performed in every U.S. state except for Delaware, collaborated with groups ranging from rock bands to research scientists, and held residencies and fellowships with institutions including the National Park Service, the National Forest Service, Harvard University, Middlebury College, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, NASA, and the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. His nonfiction has appeared in Orion, Taproot, Northern Woodlands, Appalachia, and other publications, and he is based in New England.