Meredith Hall’s first book, Without a Map: A Memoir (Beacon Press 2007) was a New York Times Bestseller. Hall is the 2004 recipient of the Gift of Freedom Award, a $50,000 grant from A Room of Her Own Foundation which allowed Hall to write her memoir. She also received the Maine Arts Commission’s 2005 Artist Fellowship, and is a MacDowell fellow. Hall won the 2005 Pushcart Prize with her first essay, which was also a “Notable Essay” in The Best American Essays 2005. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, The Southern Review, Kenyon Review and many other journals and anthologies. Hall is working on a novel and a collection of essays, and is the permanent writer in residence at the University of New Hampshire.

In addition to her writing and teaching, Ms. Hall is the founder of the Renegade Writers Group at UNH and is the creator of the Writing Program for Girls at the YWCA Girls’ Emergency Shelter in Portland, Maine. To learn more about Meredith Hall and her writing please visit MeredithHall.org.

I was awarded the Gift of Freedom from AROHO and every aspect of my life and my sense of myself changed. Suddenly the moment was exactly right for me to discover this release. AROHO carved out a doorway in space for me, and I walked through. Now this is my life. Now I am here, a writer.

-Meredith Hall