“In the Company of Fishermen”

I can’t remember the last time I envied a man, or, in fact, if I ever have. I have loved men, hated them, befriended them, taken care of them, and all too often compromised my sense of self for them, but I don’t think I have ever looked at a man and actually coveted something his maleness gave him. And yet envy was at least one of the surprising things I felt last spring when I found myself standing armpit-deep in a freshwater stream at 2:00 a.m., near Interlochen, Michigan, fly-casting for steelhead with a bunch of male poets.

Never-Ending Story (Traverse Magazine, 2012)

In many ways, from a financial viability standpoint, and even from a 21st-century American cultural plausibility standpoint, the remarkable success of Traverse City’s National Writers Series doesn’t make sense.

NWS Author Next Door: Jeff Smith

NWS Author Next Door: Jeff Smith Summer 2016 release: “Becoming Amish” By: Jeff Smith Book Description: Bill and Tricia Moser were living in one of America’s wealthiest communities—Grosse Pointe, Michigan—when they stepped away and began a journey that led to full immersion in a horse-and-buggy Amish life. No more BMWs. No more architecture career for […]