The Exeter LitFest has created two downloadable walking maps so you may go on self-guided tours any time of the year.  Each is approximately one mile in length and has plenty of benches and coffee shops along the route. In addition, we offer you a downloadable spreadsheet of Exeter authors, from the 1800’s to present (updated 12/2019), with links to Wikipedia pages and websites so you may investigate them in detail. We hope you become inspired to write your own great novel, short story, or poem!  

​

EXETER LITFEST WALKING TOUR: This 17-stop self-guided tour highlights some of our oldest authors including one of America’s very first female novelists, Tabitha Gilman Tenney (1801), and the abolitionist poet James Monroe Whitfield (1853). It also goes right up through some of today’s leading Exeter authors such as Joe Hill (Locke & Key), John Irving (Prayer for Owen Meaney) and Dan Brown (DaVinci Code). Walk along our smooth sidewalks and let your mind’s eye paint pictures of the scenes played out in some of your favorite books.

 

This 1.5 mile wheelchair-accessible loop through downtown Exeter is available for download as a PDF by clicking this link. This tour is also available in audio through your smartphone through the izi app.

​​

​

JOHN IRVING/PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY TOUR:  Download a pdf document of  a combination walking/driving tour of locations from John's life and the book. (Thanks to Bettina & Michael for suggesting an Irving tour!)

​

SEPARATE PEACE TOUR:  This self-guided tour takes you along with Gene and Phineas in John Knowle’s classic coming of age novel “A Separate Peace” (1959). The tour includes 17 stops, both on and off campus to many of the sites featured both in the book and in the 1972 film that was shot on location.   

 

This 1.5 mile wheelchair-accessible loop through Phineas’ world is available for download as a PDF by clicking this link. This tour is also available in audio through your smartphone through the izi app.

​

Exeter Author Database - A LitFest Exclusive: 

​

Click this link to view the Exeter Author Database as a PDF.