Dan Szczesny is a long-time journalist, author and librarian living in New Hampshire.
He’s written several books of travel memoir (The Adventures of Buffalo and Tough Cookie, Mosquito Rain), fiction (Sing and Other Stories) and poetry (Invincible One, Poems) and an essay collection on fatherhood (You & Me: Reflections on Becoming Your Dad.)
His book, The Nepal Chronicles, about a month long trek to Everest Base Camp and marriage in Kathmandu, won the 2016 New Hampshire state library award for Outstanding Work of Non-Fiction.
Dan is also the Editor of Murder Ink, a series of New England-based Pulp Fiction anthologies set in or around the newsroom.
His short story, “White Like Marble” was a finalist in the 2017 Ernest Hemingway Foundation Short Shorts Contest, out of the Hemingway Birthplace in Oak Park, Ill.
Dan’s book, The White Mountain: Rediscovering Mount Washington’s Hidden Culture, is a year exploration of the Northeast’s tallest peak. Mt. Washington – home of the world’s worst weather – is more than just a Rock Pile, it’s the cultural and natural soul of climbers and tourists from around the world. From car races to bird watching, from bikes to motorcycles, from the railroad to the stars to a century old observatory, Mount Washington speaks to the adventurer in all of us, and Dan turned his veteran journalist’s eye toward capturing it all in his new book.
The White Mountain won the 2019 New Hampshire Writer’s Project award for outstanding work of non-fiction, and won the People’s Choice award for non-fiction that year as well.
His newest book which he wrote with his six-year-old daughter, NH Rocks That Rock: An Adventure Guide to Twenty-Five Famous Boulders of the Granite State, is a field guide and Patch Quest project that encourages families to visit off-the-beaten-path places around the state. Volume 2 of that series will be released in 2023.
Dan began his career in Buffalo, New York. Since then, he has written for a wide variety of regional and national publications, including the Main Line Times, Philadelphia Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Princeton Packet, Pennsylvania Magazine, Appalachia Journal, New Hampshire Magazine, New Hampshire Home, Manchester Ink Link, Monadnock Underground, AMC Outdoors and Huffington Post.
In 2000, he moved to New Hampshire to cover the Presidential Election. In 2001, Dan became Associate Publisher of The Hippo, now the state’s largest Arts and Entertainment journal.
He’s a member of the Appalachian Mountain Club’s 4,000-footer club and has written extensively about the outdoors and hiking. He has camped in the Grand Canyon, hiked England’s Coast to Coast Trail and trekked to Everest Base Camp in Nepal. Dan was a hiking guide and naturalist for Blue Hill Observatory and Science Center in Milton, Mass.
Dan is currently the director of Griffin Free Public Library in Auburn, N.H. He is available for interviews at danszczesny@gmail.com
Dan Szczesny - Writer / Editor 