NEWPORT, N.H. — The Richards Free Library in Newport, New Hampshire, proudly announces best-selling author Peter Heller as the recipient of the 2025 Sarah Josepha Hale Award.
Heller is an award-winning adventure author. Originally from New York, he attended high school in Vermont and college at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in both fiction and poetry from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He currently resides in Denver, Colorado. He is a longtime contributor to NPR and a former contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. An avid outdoorsman and whitewater kayaker, he has traveled the world and written four non-fiction books about his experiences.
Heller’s first foray into writing books came with the publication of a non-fiction title, “Set Free in China: Sojourns on the Edge” in 1992. His other non-fiction works, “Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River,” “The Whale Warriors: the Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals,” and “Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave,” were subsequently published in 2004, 2007, and 2010, respectively.
Heller’s first novel, released in 2012, “The Dog Stars,” has been published in 26 languages. He followed this with “The Painter” in 2014, “Celine” in 2017, “The Orchard” and “The River” in 2019, “The Guide” in 2021, and “The Last Ranger” in 2023. His newest novel, “Burn,” published in 2024, follows two friends on their annual hunting trip in northern Maine. A week into their trip they come upon a destroyed bridge and burned village, soon realizing that Maine has seceded from the union while they have been in the wilderness.
Please join us Saturday, October 4th, at 7pm at the Newport Opera House for the Hale Award Ceremony, which will include a speech by Heller, as well as book sales and book signing. The award ceremony is free and open to the public.
An opportunity to dine with the author at the Old Courthouse Restaurant in Newport, New Hampshire, at 5 p.m. the same evening will be available for purchase at the Richards Free Library in September.
