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The River Home: An Angler's Explorations
From the author of A Place on the Water comes an examination of how the concept of home has changed during the restless twentieth century, and how the outdoors can put us in contact with the earth and ourselves. 20,000 first printing.
227 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1998
11 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Dennis
41 books47 followersJerry Dennis was born in Flint in 1954, and grew up in rural northern Michigan. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Louisville in 1981, after attending Northern Michigan University and Northwestern Michigan College.
As he began his writing career, he worked as a carpenter for five years. To date, he has written for many publications. Journalistic assignments sent him to Iceland, Chile, and extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Dennis married during this time to Gail. They currently live on the shores of Lake Michigan, not far from Traverse City.
Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan's Bear River Writers Conference, where he teaches creative non-fiction and nature writing.
As of 2014, he is the author of ten books, his best known book is The Living Great Lakes, about his trip around the great lakes in a rickety ship. He was awarded a place on the Michigan Notable Books list for that book.
In 2014, in response to a pricing dispute between his publisher, MacMillan Press, and Amazon, Dennis set up his own publishing house, Big Maple Press, to produce books which will be sold only through independent booksellers.
His awards include: 2004 Michigan Notable Books, 2004 Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Award, 2004 Great Lakes Culture Best Book Award Non-Fiction, 2004 The Stuart D. and Vernice M. Gross Award for Literature,
2003 Alumni Fellows Award, University of Louisville, College of Arts and Sciences,
1999 Michigan Author of the Year,
1993, 1996, 1998, and 2003 Best Book of the Year awarded by Outdoor Writers Association of America.
As he began his writing career, he worked as a carpenter for five years. To date, he has written for many publications. Journalistic assignments sent him to Iceland, Chile, and extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Dennis married during this time to Gail. They currently live on the shores of Lake Michigan, not far from Traverse City.
Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan's Bear River Writers Conference, where he teaches creative non-fiction and nature writing.
As of 2014, he is the author of ten books, his best known book is The Living Great Lakes, about his trip around the great lakes in a rickety ship. He was awarded a place on the Michigan Notable Books list for that book.
In 2014, in response to a pricing dispute between his publisher, MacMillan Press, and Amazon, Dennis set up his own publishing house, Big Maple Press, to produce books which will be sold only through independent booksellers.
His awards include: 2004 Michigan Notable Books, 2004 Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Award, 2004 Great Lakes Culture Best Book Award Non-Fiction, 2004 The Stuart D. and Vernice M. Gross Award for Literature,
2003 Alumni Fellows Award, University of Louisville, College of Arts and Sciences,
1999 Michigan Author of the Year,
1993, 1996, 1998, and 2003 Best Book of the Year awarded by Outdoor Writers Association of America.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 11, 2023
I read a whole book dedicated to fly fishing, that's how good the writing was. It takes place in my area so I'm sure it helped but by the end I was ready to start tying flies and trying to catch a hex hatch.
September 6, 2021
Nice bed time essays about fishing and northern Michigan.
June 23, 2016
[I had the honor of introducing Jerry after studying his work.]
Jerry Dennis Intro
Those of us who identify as book-lovers, those of us who lived inside stories throughout our childhoods—we know the work of a living legend when we encounter it on the page. Similarly, those of us who have built careers out of the well-shaped sentence, the fully-formed paragraph, the intentionally crafted essay—we know what it’s like to learn from a colleague whose body of work represents a deeply significant contribution.
Today’s Keynote Speaker, Jerry Dennis, is that kind of writer. He has given us work that ignites the imagination, while also infusing it with facts. Woven into his book The Living Great Lakes, which is part memoir, part research, part adventure—the facts alone don’t invite story, but they do stay with us long after the final page has been turned—the story that’s there is, indeed, a page-turner. There’s an important kind of intentionality to that approach. We learn as we go along, but we hardly notice that we’re learning.
Whether reading a brief personal essay Jerry published 20 years ago, or a new blog post published last month, his careful focus, smart craft, and generosity of spirit that infuse the page instill readers with a sense of possibility. “You have to open yourself to natural spectacle,” Jerry writes in The River Home. “Like a child, you have to be empty of expectation, have to possess eyes that see and ears that hear. It takes practice, like anything. Sometimes you can be surprised.”
Jerry’s writing gives us those eyes and ears, as well as surprise. His place-based work, infused with facts and the imagination, adds up to what I call slow and steady eco-activism. The result is body of work that has brought the Great Lakes Region to life for thousands of readers, above and beyond its residents. His work helps people find a way into caring, into breathing fresh air, and into appreciation of natural resources—even if they aren’t looking for it. Even if they’ve never caught a fish in their lives. Even if they’ve never seen a Great Lake.
If you’re not familiar with his work, I want you to know that Jerry is an internationally acclaimed author who has earned his living as a freelance writer since 1986. His books, including A Walk in the Animal Kingdom, The Living Great Lakes, The Windward Shore, and A Place on the Water, have won numerous awards, have been translated into seven languages, have appeared on national bestseller lists, and are required reading in many universities and colleges. His essays, poems and short fiction have appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, American Way, Michigan Quarterly Review, PANK, and Mid-American Review.
But his bio wasn’t always so chalk-full, and his life—as much as we may like to romanticize the life of the writer—is just as busy, exciting, boring, overbooked, full of love, full of confusion, muddled by injustice, and full of uncertainty as the rest of ours.
So what can we learn? After thirty years of making a living as a writer, I won’t go so far as to say that Jerry’s seen it all, but I will tell you that I invited him to be today’s Keynote Speaker with great confidence that he’s not going to sugar-coat what he has to tell us. He’s seen changes in the publishing industry that impact everyone in this room, and many of those changes, he’s seen from more than one angle.
I’m as eager as you are to learn more, and while he won’t be reading from his published work today, I hope you’ll take the hard facts he’s going to share during this presentation and water them with a healthy dose of Great Lakes imagination by reading his books when we’re done.
Jerry Dennis Intro
Those of us who identify as book-lovers, those of us who lived inside stories throughout our childhoods—we know the work of a living legend when we encounter it on the page. Similarly, those of us who have built careers out of the well-shaped sentence, the fully-formed paragraph, the intentionally crafted essay—we know what it’s like to learn from a colleague whose body of work represents a deeply significant contribution.
Today’s Keynote Speaker, Jerry Dennis, is that kind of writer. He has given us work that ignites the imagination, while also infusing it with facts. Woven into his book The Living Great Lakes, which is part memoir, part research, part adventure—the facts alone don’t invite story, but they do stay with us long after the final page has been turned—the story that’s there is, indeed, a page-turner. There’s an important kind of intentionality to that approach. We learn as we go along, but we hardly notice that we’re learning.
Whether reading a brief personal essay Jerry published 20 years ago, or a new blog post published last month, his careful focus, smart craft, and generosity of spirit that infuse the page instill readers with a sense of possibility. “You have to open yourself to natural spectacle,” Jerry writes in The River Home. “Like a child, you have to be empty of expectation, have to possess eyes that see and ears that hear. It takes practice, like anything. Sometimes you can be surprised.”
Jerry’s writing gives us those eyes and ears, as well as surprise. His place-based work, infused with facts and the imagination, adds up to what I call slow and steady eco-activism. The result is body of work that has brought the Great Lakes Region to life for thousands of readers, above and beyond its residents. His work helps people find a way into caring, into breathing fresh air, and into appreciation of natural resources—even if they aren’t looking for it. Even if they’ve never caught a fish in their lives. Even if they’ve never seen a Great Lake.
If you’re not familiar with his work, I want you to know that Jerry is an internationally acclaimed author who has earned his living as a freelance writer since 1986. His books, including A Walk in the Animal Kingdom, The Living Great Lakes, The Windward Shore, and A Place on the Water, have won numerous awards, have been translated into seven languages, have appeared on national bestseller lists, and are required reading in many universities and colleges. His essays, poems and short fiction have appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, American Way, Michigan Quarterly Review, PANK, and Mid-American Review.
But his bio wasn’t always so chalk-full, and his life—as much as we may like to romanticize the life of the writer—is just as busy, exciting, boring, overbooked, full of love, full of confusion, muddled by injustice, and full of uncertainty as the rest of ours.
So what can we learn? After thirty years of making a living as a writer, I won’t go so far as to say that Jerry’s seen it all, but I will tell you that I invited him to be today’s Keynote Speaker with great confidence that he’s not going to sugar-coat what he has to tell us. He’s seen changes in the publishing industry that impact everyone in this room, and many of those changes, he’s seen from more than one angle.
I’m as eager as you are to learn more, and while he won’t be reading from his published work today, I hope you’ll take the hard facts he’s going to share during this presentation and water them with a healthy dose of Great Lakes imagination by reading his books when we’re done.
January 12, 2009
I tried reading this one too, since the Great Lakes book was such a good read, and I am not a fly fisherman so this one was harder to get through, but the stories were relevant to anyone who loves the out of doors and the stories were interesting. Definitely some insiders who fly fish would appreciate the author's stories about not revealing his best fishing spots or what happened when he did in spite of his inclination not to. I liked his opening story about living in a neighborhood in TC where everyone knew each other and shared experiences vs. moving to a new place out on the peninsula where his house was bigger but the community feeling was not as it had been. Also loved some other stories about old fishermen and finding sacred spots. Anyone could appreciate that! Also made me appreciate my father's fly fishing experience. I knew he just plain loved being on the water as does the author. And lastly, a friend who spends his winters tying flies and in good weather goes on fly fishing trips sometimes by himself and sometimes with a friend. Can appreciate his experiences now.
February 13, 2011
Joe bought this book for me in 1998. A great storyteller and writer to warm the heart, I enjoyed reading about tying flies and suffering over Michigan winters. Dennis fished the same rivers that I've fished--Pere Marquete, Au Sable, Platte and a few others.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews