[T]he now late, legendary Northeast Kingdom writer Howard Frank Mosher had yet to sell a story back in the summer of 1971 when he opened his mailbox to find a magazine bearing his first byline.
“Just knowing he’d gotten something published,” recalls his wife, Phillis, “was a glorious moment.”
Mosher went on to pen 11 novels and two nonfiction works in the next half-century before learning he had lung cancer in December 2016. Having started one last manuscript, he pulled out a legal pad and wrote in longhand hour upon hour until he finished it. A subsequent book deal just days before his death a month later gave the author one final, full-circle high.
“He was just so gratified,” his wife remembers. “He loved the stories — they turned out the way he wanted them to.”
St. Martin’s Press is debuting that collection, “Points North”, upon the first anniversary of Mosher’s death. Publishers Weekly calls the title “a last testament to his place among the best regional American writers of his day.”
But without the author here for promotion, his wife has convinced a slate of literary friends — starting with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo — to travel the state for what she’s calling a “Great (Vicarious) American Book Tour.”
“I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of girl,” she says, “but these are extenuating circumstances.”
Mosher wrote a book an average of every three to five years. After the 2015 release of “God’s Kingdom,” he figured he had somewhere between 2018 and 2020 to finish his next. Then, inquiring about what he believed to be a respiratory infection, the author discovered he had aggressive and all but untreatable cancer.
“He thought he only had a few days,” his wife remembers.
Tim McGraw’s song “Live Like You Were Dying” calls for skydiving and Rocky Mountain climbing. Mosher instead planted himself at the dining room table and, wielding his favorite Parker extra-fine blue ballpoint pen, wrote and wrote and wrote.
“He muckled right down,” recalls Phillis Mosher, tapping one of her husband’s favorite verbs. “He worked almost literally day and night.”
The author finished not only his book but also five pages of household directives.
“He even wrote his own obituary,” his wife adds.
Mosher was still alive when, after submitting the manuscript, St. Martin’s Press promptly responded with a publication offer.
“I wouldn’t change a word,” his editor said.
Mosher died Jan. 29, 2017, leaving his wife to proofread the book and plan a series of public readings:
— On Tuesday, Hardwick’s Galaxy Bookshop will host Mosher’s brother, Terry, at 7 p.m. at Hazen Union School.
— On Thursday, Waterbury’s Bridgeside Books will host local writer Stephen Russell Payne at 6 p.m. and Rutland’s Phoenix Books will host local writers Chuck Clarino, Yvonne Daley and Will Notte at 6:30 p.m.
— On Saturday, Lyndonville’s Green Mountain Books will host local writer Garret Keizer at 2 p.m., and Bradford’s Star Cat Books will host local writer Dean Whitlock at 3 p.m.
— On Jan. 30, Burlington’s Phoenix Books will host local writers Chris Bohjalian, Stephen Kiernan and Stephen Russell Payne at 5:30 p.m., and the Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury will host community readers at 6:30 p.m.
— On Jan. 31, Norwich Bookstore will host local writer Jeffrey Lent at 7 p.m.
— On Feb. 2, Manchester’s Northshire Bookstore will host local writers Sara Henry, Eric Rickstad and Bill Schubart at 6 p.m.
— And on Feb. 8, Montpelier’s Bear Pond Books will host Russo, Bohjalian, Keizer and fellow writers Don Bredes, Thomas Christopher Greene, Robin MacArthur and Mosher’s son, Jake, at a special Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Alumni Hall event at 5 p.m.
Phillis Mosher hopes to travel to many of the readings, “barring horrible weather.”
“I can’t write a grocery list, but we were partners in this,” she says. “When he was young, Howard would say, ‘I want to be writer,’ and I would say, ‘You are a writer.’ We done good.”
