Hall, Meredith 1949–

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Hall, Meredith 1949–

PERSONAL:

Born 1949; divorced; children: three. Education: Graduated from Bowdoin College, c. 1993; University of New Hampshire, M.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Pownal, ME. Office—University of New Hampshire, 310 Hamilton Smith Hall, Durham, NH 03824.

CAREER:

Writer and educator. University of New Hampshire, Durham, writing teacher.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Gift of Freedom Award, A Room of Her Own Foundation, 2004; Pushcart Prize, 2004, for "Shunned"; fellowships with Maine Arts Commission, MacDowell Colony, Jental Arts, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and Djerassi, all 2005; University of New Hampshire President's Citation for Excellence in Teaching; Thomas Williams Prize in Fiction; Forbes Rickard Poetry Prize; Bertram Louis Smith Prize in English; Elbridge Sibley Award in Anthropology.

WRITINGS:

Without a Map: A Memoir, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 2007.

Contributor to New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Southern Review, Five Points, Prairie Schooner, and several anthologies.

SIDELIGHTS:

In 1965, Maine native Meredith Hall was a sixteen-year-old high school student who became pregnant and was inevitably forced by her parents to give her child up for adoption. After several years wandering around Europe and the Middle East, she returned to Maine, got married, and started a family. Hall was ultimately reconnected with her grown son, and felt compelled to share her story in the book Without a Map: A Memoir. In an interview with contributor Ray Routhier on the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram Web site, Hall commented: "I thought that I was writing about the griefs that come from the loss of people we love deeply—my child, my mother and my father. As I wrote, I was flooded with love and great tenderness for my parents. And I was surprised to feel great love and tenderness for the young girl who had experienced those losses…. I also came to see that I live my life with a certain calm and fullness, a deep sense of gratitude and awe."

In the opinion of Library Journal contributor Elizabeth Brinkley, "The message of redemptive compassion makes this a worthwhile and moving read." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found that the "painful memoir builds to a quiet resolution." Entertainment Weekly writer Alanna Nash described Hall as a "brave writer of tumultuous beauty." "Stunning" was how Emily Book described the book in a review for Booklist. Cook went on to note Hall's "spare, unsentimental prose."