BEACHES TO WALK, rivers to paddle, trails to hike. The pair of red-headed woodpeckers that nested in our yard. Warblers. A red-eyed vireo laboring to feed a fledgling cowbird half again its size. Visits from friends and family (everyone wants to visit Traverse City in the summer). Neighbors’ lawn mowers, leaf blowers, chainsaws, chippers. Women’s […]

SUDDENLY ITS SUMMER—and not just the season of blue skies and verdant woods, of songbirds in the morning, thunderstorms in the afternoon, and fireflies at night, but the languid interlude we remember so fondly from childhood. Then as now it can seem timeless, lazy, as far removed from the productive seasons as the apple tree […]

WHEN I WAS A KID I wanted a life of adventure. What kid doesn’t? But I had the wrong idea about it. I thought you had to risk your life. I thought you had to travel to distant places and throw yourself into difficult situations. I didn’t know that ordinary moments can be adventures, too. […]

I WAS A FAN of Keith Taylor’s nature essays and poetry for years before we met, so it’s probably not surprising that I liked him from the first time we shook hands. It was at the first Bear River Writers Conference, on Walloon Lake, Michigan, in 2000, and I liked him so much that I […]

Next week Keith Taylor weighs in with a wonderful tribute to what’s lighting him up (a clue: it has wings). Until then, here’s what I’ve been enjoying this week: Millions of people have been lit up this spring by the singer/songwriter Joshua Davis, who is one of six remaining contestants on the television talent show, […]

Every week, starting this week, I’m asking friends to comment on the books, movies, music, art, natural events, and creative projects that they’ve been finding most interesting and inspiring. For the first post, I’m honored to present a powerful new poem by Michael Delp. Mike’s an old friend and fishing pal and a terrific writer […]

Today I’m thinking ahead to the University of Michigan’s Bear River Writer’s Conference on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan, which will be held May 28-June 1. This is among the finest writing conferences in the country, and I’m pleased to have taught workshops at it every year except one since its inauguration in 2000. Our […]

A study in the journal Emotion (as reported in The New York Times) suggests that the sense of awe might be beneficial to your health. As we all know, awe is one of the upbeat moods, along with joy, pride, contentment, enthusiasm, inspiration, amusement, compassion, and love. Most of us have probably suspected that staying […]

Yes. But it’s a good kind of crazy. Artist Glenn Wolff and I have made our livings illustrating and writing books for nearly 30 years. In that time we’ve witnessed the publishing industry go through the most dramatic changes since Guttenberg. When we met in 1986, Glenn and I could not have anticipated how much […]

Glenn Wolff’s and my “forgotten” book has just appeared for the first time in paperback. The Bird in the Waterfall: A Natural History of Oceans, Rivers, and Lakes was published in hardcover in 1996 by HarperCollins Publishers, on the heels of our national bestseller, It’s Raining Frogs and Fishes. We were scheduled to launch Bird […]