About
An eleventh-generation native of Western Pennsylvania, I now live in East Tennessee in the shadow of Chilhowee Mountain. Smaller mountains populated the landscape where I grew up in Northern Appalachia, whereas much larger mountains do in Southern Appalachia, where I’ve made my home for going on three decades.
My grandparents and greats were steel workers, coal miners, farmers, railroad engineers, educators, or the spouses thereof. My parents are musicians who taught music during their working years.
For the past twenty-five or so years, I have taught on the faculty of Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, an outdoor learning center dedicated to connecting people with nature in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Among other things, I design and facilitate immersive overnight experiences for students and adult guests aged 9 to 90, give or take.
What that looks like in practice: I get to lead field classes for middle and high schoolers, university students, working adults, and retirees; teach courses in the Southern Appalachian Naturalist Certification Program; co-direct the Tremont Writers Conference, hike a lot, and much more. In short, I spend a lot of my time in the woods connecting with people and the rest of Creation.
For modest pay or in some cases none, I have also worked in a door frame factory, as a job coach for the developmentally challenged, taught English overseas, written for magazines and newspapers, met with members of Congress, cleaned horse stables, built hiking trails, performed in bands and as a solo musician, taught creative writing, and (very intermittently) fought fires and assisted in search and rescue operations.
Weird fact: In Mexico, while driving to Nicaragua to deliver supplies to hurricane victims, I was almost arrested for operating a school bus without a license. Long story.
More?
Deep affections of mine seem to include things becoming increasingly rare: Wild places. Old barns. Winters with snow. Thriving small towns and family-owned farms. Pubs without televisions. Trees with children up in their branches.
Spending time outdoors—in the forest, of course, but really anywhere—numbers among my commitments and aspirations.
So do traditions, cultures, and ways of knowing that persist despite overwhelming pressure to conform to the modern age. As well, a common life free of ideological colonization and litmus tests, internet mobs, fashionable academic theories, and the prejudices and nihilistic tendencies of both the Left and Right.
I’ll add to this list faithful understandings of the givenness of reality (as opposed to the modern tendency to retreat online and make it up), such as those rooted in so-called “organized” religion, particularly the one founded by enslaved people and whose chief symbol is an ancient execution device. And rebelling against technology’s uninvited reach into our private lives and public spaces, even while acknowledging my qualified and often reluctant dependency on it. And conserving wild spaces, cultural memory, and humanity itself in an era when each is under threat. And, always, spending time with family, reading good books, and writing songs with friends.
I recently wrote a book titled Forest Time: Footnotes to an Outdoor Education. Among other things, it explores what it means to be human, deeply connected to a place and its history, its people, its critters, and its flourishing.
My wife Élan is also a writer. Our son, a redhead like her (I am outnumbered), enjoys river swimming, soccer, hunting, plum pudding (old family recipe), the Steelers, The Wilderking Trilogy by Jonathan Rogers (long live the Feechies!), and collecting knives. We live on the Little River, called Agiqua by the Cherokee.
If you’ve read this far, I’m shocked and maybe a little concerned for you, but mainly humbled. Thank you.
Contact me
I’m available to speak, teach, or give a reading for public schools and lecture series, universities, libraries, writers conferences, book festivals, business groups, and more. If you want to reach out, I’m often in the woods and never on Facebook, Bluesky, or X, so don’t look for me there. Your patience is appreciated.