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MONADNOCK PROFILE A teacher, an author, and a whole lot more Surry’s Jean Winter has led a varied life
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10/15/09. Hooper foto. Profile. News. Jean Winter with her
mystery novel. |
By Jessica Arriens
Sentinel Staff
Jean S. Winter’s students were dumbfounded when they
first discovered their teacher was a published author. “Ms. Winter!” they cried,
passing by her at a local book signing.
“What are you doing here? You wrote a book?”
Winter pops out of her chair to re-enact the memory, laughing at her students’ shock.
It was a good lesson for them to learn, Winter said, to know that teachers have “other personalities besides our classroom or our role at the blackboard.”
Winter has had a role at the blackboard for nearly three decades, currently as a foreign language teacher at Keene Middle School.
Unearthing her “other personalities” would likely surprise anyone, middle schooler or not.
She’s lived and traveled extensively abroad, worked for a petroleum consulting group in Algeria and for an undercover agent busting heroin traffickers in France.
She owns hoop skirts and performs traditional English country dances. Does two cartwheels in a row after revealing her age (65).
And one day, about a year ago, she sat down to write a murder mystery. Her first-ever book.
“It was really fun to write, fun to come up with events, to make it complicated enough so (the mystery) wasn’t obvious enough from the start,” she said.
The idea for the book — eventually titled “Murder on Mount Monadnock” — came from Winter’s experience researching the famous mountain with her husband, Craig M. Brandon.
Brandon is the owner of Surry Cottage Books, a local publishing company. Back in 2007, he was working on his own book chronicling the history and lore of Mount Monadnock.
The couple hiked the mountain frequently, usually passing the Halfway House site, a former hotel set on the mountain.
“We talked about what kind of famous people stayed there or could have stayed there,” Brandon said, and what kind of story could be written about the mountain.
They settled on a murder mystery, adding layers to the tale each time they hiked.
“I never took it seriously,” Brandon said. “But apparently she did.”
Winter set out crafting a plot and characters, one day coming to Brandon with a rough copy of the story.
“It was really pretty good,” he said.
So Winter began writing in earnest, working in the evenings after school and during the summer. It took all-nighters and some give and take between Winter and Brandon, who helped with edits (“I thought it was too long, she didn’t want to cut things,” he said).
But the hard work all paid off. “Murder on Mount Monadnock” — published through Brandon’s company at the end of last year — is selling well, he said. And Winter is already thinking about a sequel.
“It’s really a local book,” she said, influenced by the region’s rich history. But it also draws heavily from Winter’s own history, especially her French background.
The main character, Robert de la Tour, is French. His speech is peppered with phrases like “Mon Dieu!” and “C’est magnifique.”
Winter is, after all, a French teacher (she also teaches Spanish and speaks it nearly fluently). She lived in Paris for five years after graduating college, working a medley of jobs, including stints as a car salesman and an American Embassy translator.
It was there Winter lent her translating skills to the Bureau of Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs, working with the undercover agent who inspired the film “The French Connection.”
“Paris was wonderful to live in at that time,” she said. “You could travel and live without spending a lot of money.”
She returned to America in the early ’70s, landing a job in New York City’s financial realm, but was soon drawn away from America again, this time to Algeria, a former French colony in North Africa.
For 10 years she lived a Westernized life abroad, raising two sons with her Algerian husband and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea on weekends. That all changed, however, as elements of radical Islam seeped into the country.
“It became more and more dangerous,” Winter said, propelling her and her children back to the United States, where — unmarried now — she found a job at a private school in Connecticut.
She moved to New Hampshire in 2002, after meeting Brandon. The couple married in 2003.
Winter is still an avid traveler. And it is still her experience abroad that shapes her personality, both inside and outside the classroom.
“It’s very much who she is,” Brandon said, influencing everything from what she reads to what she cooks (sometimes just for herself, since Brandon is not a fan of French food).
“I like seeing different places, trying different food, having different cultural experiences,” Winter said.
And she wishes more people were the same.
Then, “maybe their minds would be open to ideas different than their own.”
Jessica Arriens can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1433, or jarriens@keenesentinel.com
“What are you doing here? You wrote a book?”
Winter pops out of her chair to re-enact the memory, laughing at her students’ shock.
It was a good lesson for them to learn, Winter said, to know that teachers have “other personalities besides our classroom or our role at the blackboard.”
Winter has had a role at the blackboard for nearly three decades, currently as a foreign language teacher at Keene Middle School.
Unearthing her “other personalities” would likely surprise anyone, middle schooler or not.
She’s lived and traveled extensively abroad, worked for a petroleum consulting group in Algeria and for an undercover agent busting heroin traffickers in France.
She owns hoop skirts and performs traditional English country dances. Does two cartwheels in a row after revealing her age (65).
And one day, about a year ago, she sat down to write a murder mystery. Her first-ever book.
“It was really fun to write, fun to come up with events, to make it complicated enough so (the mystery) wasn’t obvious enough from the start,” she said.
The idea for the book — eventually titled “Murder on Mount Monadnock” — came from Winter’s experience researching the famous mountain with her husband, Craig M. Brandon.
Brandon is the owner of Surry Cottage Books, a local publishing company. Back in 2007, he was working on his own book chronicling the history and lore of Mount Monadnock.
The couple hiked the mountain frequently, usually passing the Halfway House site, a former hotel set on the mountain.
“We talked about what kind of famous people stayed there or could have stayed there,” Brandon said, and what kind of story could be written about the mountain.
They settled on a murder mystery, adding layers to the tale each time they hiked.
“I never took it seriously,” Brandon said. “But apparently she did.”
Winter set out crafting a plot and characters, one day coming to Brandon with a rough copy of the story.
“It was really pretty good,” he said.
So Winter began writing in earnest, working in the evenings after school and during the summer. It took all-nighters and some give and take between Winter and Brandon, who helped with edits (“I thought it was too long, she didn’t want to cut things,” he said).
But the hard work all paid off. “Murder on Mount Monadnock” — published through Brandon’s company at the end of last year — is selling well, he said. And Winter is already thinking about a sequel.
“It’s really a local book,” she said, influenced by the region’s rich history. But it also draws heavily from Winter’s own history, especially her French background.
The main character, Robert de la Tour, is French. His speech is peppered with phrases like “Mon Dieu!” and “C’est magnifique.”
Winter is, after all, a French teacher (she also teaches Spanish and speaks it nearly fluently). She lived in Paris for five years after graduating college, working a medley of jobs, including stints as a car salesman and an American Embassy translator.
It was there Winter lent her translating skills to the Bureau of Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs, working with the undercover agent who inspired the film “The French Connection.”
“Paris was wonderful to live in at that time,” she said. “You could travel and live without spending a lot of money.”
She returned to America in the early ’70s, landing a job in New York City’s financial realm, but was soon drawn away from America again, this time to Algeria, a former French colony in North Africa.
For 10 years she lived a Westernized life abroad, raising two sons with her Algerian husband and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea on weekends. That all changed, however, as elements of radical Islam seeped into the country.
“It became more and more dangerous,” Winter said, propelling her and her children back to the United States, where — unmarried now — she found a job at a private school in Connecticut.
She moved to New Hampshire in 2002, after meeting Brandon. The couple married in 2003.
Winter is still an avid traveler. And it is still her experience abroad that shapes her personality, both inside and outside the classroom.
“It’s very much who she is,” Brandon said, influencing everything from what she reads to what she cooks (sometimes just for herself, since Brandon is not a fan of French food).
“I like seeing different places, trying different food, having different cultural experiences,” Winter said.
And she wishes more people were the same.
Then, “maybe their minds would be open to ideas different than their own.”
Jessica Arriens can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1433, or jarriens@keenesentinel.com
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