Jennie Coughlin

Jennie Coughlin first won awards for her coverage of small towns in Massachusetts while working at community newspapers there, and now uses a different kind of storytelling to showcase life in fictional Exeter, Massachusetts. In addition to her work as a reporter, editor and columnist at small newspapers, she was Virginia's USA TODAY correspondent for a few years.

The flavor of small college towns with lots of history and strong arts communities comes through in her stories about Exeter, a small mill town in the Blackstone Valley. The name is a nod to her hometown's history, but Exeter isn't based on Franklin or any of the other small towns she's lived in -- reality in those places is far too unbelievable to make good fiction.