River muse

the long version

This collection consists of a wide-ranging anthology of stories from various Merrimack Valley area writers, including unpublished works by Jack Kerouac. They deftly illustrate this fact: fertile literary imaginations continue to grow along the Merrimack River Valley. The writers in these pages, grounded in a literary tradition as deep as those along the Hudson River Valley and the Connecticut River Valley, reflect a uniquely modern aspect of the New England character, one shaped by grave-yard shifts, neighborhood dives, comic book stores, immigrants, and railroad yards. Their stories give us the unvarnished life of a people and a place steeped in lore yet brimming with new mysteries. In doing so, they herald the region's latest revival.