One story, written by Danny Valdes ’13, was chosen as a college pick of the week by Longreads, a website for long-form fiction, Hirsch notes. Many of the pieces—which are the result of Sharlet’s students going out into the towns of the Upper Valley in New Hampshire and Vermont and writing about the people and places they encounter—have received attention from other writers and blogs.
Sharlet, the Mellon Assistant Professor of English, tells Hirsch that one of his motivations for creating 40 Towns was getting more readers for his students’ work.
“You see these pieces that are so great and then never get read. Every single term, someone writes something really great. These stories are so fleeting, and then they’re gone.”
Valdes highly recommends the experience. “One of the things about Dartmouth students is we don’t step outside of campus nearly as often as we should,” he tells Hirsch. “It was one of the best things about this class.”
Read the full story, published 9/4/13 by Seven Days.