Portsmouth, NH -- August 28, 2007

(click to enlarge to see titles and authors)

At RiverRun Bookstore I became impressed with the buy local campaign that I would see next in Portland and then in Montpelier. These towns are serious.

What's great about Portsmouth? You can work, you don't need to lock your door. And, there are a huge number of writers, artists and musicians—way beyond normal.

The RPM challenge was created here—a challenge, sort of like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, created in the Bay Area) to record an album in the month of February—the shortest month. RPM is hardcore. NaNoWriMo cheats does it in November, spectacularly longer, weighing in at 30 days.

For art and culture, he said, you normally have to go to a big city, but Portsmouth has it all. The bad news is that it’s getting expensive. But, no matter how expensive it gets here, it will still be cheaper than Boston.

Check out The Wire, a weekly arts paper.