Children's Book Author Publishes First Novel

At the Rhode Island School of Design where she earned a degree in illustration, Nan Rossiter enrolled in an English literature class that featured the works of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

One day as the professor, Alice Hall Petry, was returning students' essays, she praised Rossiter's literary talents and suggested she consider becoming an author.

It was a flattering notion Rossiter politely accepted, but dismissed.

But on the 25th anniversary this spring of her college graduation, Rossiter celebrated the official release of her first adult novel, "The Gin & Chowder Club."

The novel is a tale of an illicit summer love affair on Cape Cod in the early 1960s and how it reverberates in a tight circle of friends.

She mailed a copy of the $15 paperback book -- a lead character in the story takes the same literature course in college that Rossiter did -- to her former professor, who now teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Rossiter, 47, has yet to get a response from Petry, but she has high hopes the book that percolated in her mind for so long will jump-start her adult novel career.

The publisher, Kensington Books in New York City, has already commissioned a second book, about a boy with autism.

"It's probably been in my head for about 10 years, but I didn't start writing it 'til 2005. Then the story took on a life of its own... It just came to life. I was just the vessel," Rossiter said about "The Gin & Chowder Club," whose title is the name of a real club in Colebrook.

The fictional story has nothing to do with that club, but it does have its share of gin and chowder.

It is not Rossiter's first book, nor is it the only one she is releasing this year.

She already is an award-winning children's author/illustrator -- between 1997 and 2002 she wrote and illustrated three children's books, including the popular "Rugby & Rosie," about raising a Guiding Eyes dog, and "Sugar on Snow," about making maple syrup in New England, and "The Way Home."

"Sugar on Snow" was recently reprinted in a paperback version.

So what was this married mother of two teenage sons doing for seven years? Her freckled face breaks into a shy smile with that inquiry.

Beyond raising her family in their home on the northeast edge of town, she was writing stories and answering rejection letters, including some for her just-published novel and a nonfiction children's book she wrote and illustrated, "The Fo'c'sle: Henry Beston's `Outermost House,' " scheduled for release in the fall.

That children's story is about a tiny seaside shack -- 16-by-20 feet -- on a Cape Cod dune near the Nauset beach light station.

Writer/naturalist Beston named it "Fo'c'sle" -- which means the "forward castle" on a ship -- and where he spent a solitary year in 1928 observing wildlife in the four seasons.

The out-of-the-way place was named a national literary landmark in the late 1960s, but it no longer exists. It washed out to sea during a winter hurricane in 1978.

A soft-spoken woman with steely resolve, Rossiter refused to be discouraged by rejections of her story ideas. Buoyed by faith and belief in her storytelling, she persevered.

In 2009, she sold "The Gin & Chowder Club" to a publisher who now wants her to write a book a year. At the same time, she was writing and finishing illustrations for the children's book.

She also wrote -- along with such top authors as Fern Michaels -- for a women's Christmas anthology titled "Making Spirits Bright," which will be released in October.

Hickory Stick Bookshop owner Fran Keilty in Washington described Rossiter as a "talented young woman" who she was glad she could introduce to members of the area literary community that helped connect her with an agent and publisher. One of Rossiter's recent book signings was at the bookshop.

"I am so thrilled for her because she has worked so hard for this," said Sally Tornow, the public services librarian at New Milford Public Library. "It's just so cool."

Tornow said she was captivated by the story that is a blend of what Rossiter said she loves to read: passion, betrayal, faith, friendship, triumph and tragedy, and redemption.

She jokes that she is particularly delighted Rossiter has "come to the adult side."

"It's a beautiful love story," Tornow said.

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