Heather Pierson does what she always knew she would. Having just won a songwriting award this summer and scheduled to release her sixth CD this fall, Pierson earns her living and lives her life through music.

“I guess for most people breaking through means winning ‘American Idol’ or getting a big record contract,” Pierson said. “But I’m already doing what I want. I’m able to make a living with my music. What could be better than that?”

Pierson’s calendar is booked for the rest of year with performances every weekend somewhere in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. She writes songs and records her music between gigs.

Winning first place in the 2012 New England Songwriting Contest this summer along with the cash prize was an added bonus.

But for Pierson paying the bills isn’t what life’s about. It’s about music, and music is about life. Her winning song, “A Hard Man to Please,” subtly paints a sorrowful vignette of a woman trapped in a destructive relationship with hopes that her son won’t follow in his father’s footsteps. Pierson’s clear voice carries the simple but captivating melody with honesty and beauty.

“I’m completely flabbergasted that I won,” said Pierson, who grew up in Hebron   and now lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. “I almost didn’t submit that song because I thought it might be too controversial. I didn’t even expect to place.”

But with the encouragement of her boyfriend, bass player and touring partner, Shawn Nadeau, Pierson entered the contest.

“The song is less about me and more about the characters,” Pierson said. “But there’s a little bit of me in everything I write.”

Pierson shared that she had been in a relationship for several years that “really held her down.” She preferred not to go into detail but said that she resolved to never let it happen again.

“I have a friend who told me I should write happy songs once in while,” Pierson said with a laugh. “I do have some, you know. Normally, I really am a happy person.”

Pierson’s complete range of emotions and her zest for life come through in her overflowing repertoire of music. She plays jazz and New Age piano; she sings folk and blues; she writes songs that she doesn’t know how to tag.

“I don’t write with a particular genre in mind,” Pierson said. “It’s just however the song comes out.”

Her latest collection of original piano compositions, called “The Open Road,” lends itself to a more soothing New Age sound. Pierson, who began piano lessons as a young child, considers piano her primary instrument. She has dedicated this CD to her longtime piano teacher, Helen Davidson.

“Sometimes kids take lessons and their parents have to remind them to practice,” Pierson said. “With me, it was just the opposite. My parents would tell me that maybe I should do something else once in a while.”

But Pierson readily gives credit to her family who encouraged her music and particularly her father, who played guitar and clarinet. Pierson’s parents uprooted from Joplin, Mo., where Pierson was born, to make a fresh start in Maine. But they kept their musical roots and surrounded their daughter with a variety of genres.

While attending Oxford Hills High School, Pierson was already singing with bands and playing gigs in local bars. “I had to either sit with one of my parents or an adult band member between sets,” Pierson said. “I wasn’t allowed to walk around the bars because I was underage.”

Pierson said she never doubted that she would be doing something with music. And now in her 30s, she believes she has come into her own and is doing full time what she has always wanted to do. For more information on Pierson’s scheduled performances and music releases, visit www.heatherpierson.com.

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