Nancy Hayes Kilgore: Wild Mountain

Nancy is the winner of the 2016 Vermont Writers Prize. She is the author of two novels, Wild Mountain (Green Writers Press, 2017) and Sea Level, a 2011 ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year. Nancy has published in the anthology Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s and 70s, in literary journals, and as a Vermont Public Radio Commentator. Nancy’s writing has been compared to Alice Munro’s and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a graduate of The Ellis School and the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Nancy’s background as an ordained minister and pastoral counselor underlie her interests in spirituality and psychology, and, with her love of nature and poetry, coalesce in her fiction writing. She leads workshops and retreats integrating spirituality and creative writing.

In Wild Mountain, Vermonter Mona Duval loves the covered bridge beside her store. She loves local history and the rugged, rural nature of her home state. But when an ice storm collapses the bridge, she is bereft. Frank MacFarland, a seasonal resident who is beguiled by Mona, lends his political expertise to help rebuild the bridge. But they meet with powerful opposition. Tensions arise in the town, compounded by resistance to the soon-to-be-voted-on Freedom to Marry bill. And then, unexpectedly, Mona’s abusive ex-husband arrives. Wild Mountain is a page-turning, beautifully written novel about the love between Frank and Mona, the love of place, freedom to marry, and freedom from the past, by a writer whose prose has been compared to Alice Munro’s.

Links to interviews with Nancy can be found at her website.