HARDWICK – Peter Gould, writer, theater performer and teacher, will launch his new young adult novel, “Red Nose Girl,” at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 7, at Hardwick’s Jeudevine Library. The reading is also sponsored by Galaxy Books.
Gould has been working on “Red Nose Girl” for twelve years. It has been seventeen years since the publication of his last young adult novel, “Write Naked,” which won the 2009 National Green Earth Book Award for its strong environmental message.
In this new work, Lettie and Trevor are best friends in tenth grade, somewhere in Vermont. Lettie is a white girl who wears a red nose. Trevor is Black and gay; he wears theatrical costumes to school. They’re making a movie. They drink a lot of coffee. “Red Nose Girl” is Lettie’s story about how their Advanced Placement U.S. History project grew from a research paper to a road trip, and led them to confront the for-profit prison system in Vermont and beyond.
“For Lettie,” Gould says, “it’s personal. For Trevor, it’s way more than that.”
To prepare for the writing, Gould interviewed people at the Vermont Agency of Corrections, and did two stints teaching theater skills at a maximum-security youth detention center in Albuquerque, N.M.
Gould is known in the Northeast Kingdom as the founder and director of the “Get Thee to the Funnery” Shakespeare camp. He was the 2016 recipient of the Vermont Arts Council’s Award for Teaching Artist of the Year.
“I use my Shakespeare work with young people,” Gould says, “to start discussions about issues that are important to their lives here in Vermont. We talk about love, hatred, revenge, violence, inter-generational conflict, climate change; you name it, we’ve talked about it, and Shakespeare work strengthens our voice, to make us more articulate citizens.”
There will be books for sale at the launch. For information: contact the Jeudevine Library, Galaxy Books and [email protected].
