From the Director's Desk...Robert Frost described New Hampshire, in a poem of the same name, as "a state producing precious metals, stones, and - writing; none of these except perhaps the precious literature in quantity or quality to worry the producer about disposing of it. Do you know, considering the market, there are more poems produced than any other thing?" Over the last few hundred years, many hundreds of writers have lived in the Granite State and have produced not only poems but a vast array of literature on every topic imaginable. New Hampshire authors and illustrators have created characters - from Holden Caulfield to Curious George, that have become a part of our culture. To help readers to find out about all of these authors, the N.H. Center for the Book has launched - in partnership with the Reference Section of the N.H. State Library - the New Hampshire Authors Database. The database began with all the entries from the published work New Hampshire Authors, Sixth Edition, Revised & Enlarged, which was compiled by Donna Gilbreth in 1998. To the 1,000+ authors found in that volume we have added new authors and additional information about some of the old ones. Writers who were born in the Granite State, are current residents, or who have spent a significant portion of their writing careers in New Hampshire and who have at least one published book catalogued in a New Hampshire library have been included.

The New Hampshire Author's Database is available on the New Hampshire Center for the Book website at http://www.state.nh.us/nhsl/bookcenter/literary/nh_authors.html. You may search for authors by name and display their full records to see what awards they have won, dates and places relevant to their lives, information on their published works, and in some cases websites and a published biography about them. Other ways of searching are also available:

Find out who is buried in Jaffrey by searching for it as a burial place.

Search for Gilmanton as a place of birth to find out which Librarian of Congress was a native of the Granite State.

Search for Franklin as a residence to find out what famous historian summered there.

Search by genre - there is a browse list available so you may see what your choices are - to see how many New Hampshire authors write poetry; or science fiction; or whatever interests you.

Search for "New Hampshire Poet Laureate" under Awards & Honors to see which New Hampshire authors have held this position - and how many of them have also won Pulitzers.