The Star in the Sycamore

For Tom Springer, the usual four seasons can’t begin to describe the mini-solstices of a Midwestern year: “Does summer really begin on June 21? No, the first ripe Michigan strawberries say summer to me ... just as a sumac that flames crimson in an August fencerow sends up the first semaphore flag of autumn. While these milestones aren’t measured by celestial reckoning, learning to know and observe them can greatly enrich a life.”

The Star in the Sycamore takes readers on a journey of rare insight and local discovery. In the ecstasy of a dusk feeding frenzy, Springer catches a slew of fat bass and toothsome pike in "a little river gone wild in the city." In his love for country dogs, un-pampered on their beds of barn straw, he sees an ancient link to musky, wild pleasures that “fur babies” will never know. In his quest to learn dozens of star constellations, he reveals a striking connection between stars, trees and souls.

Along the way, he meets people forever changed and healed by wildness. A combat soldier on a flight home, whose agitated demeanor grows calm and joyful as he describes an upcoming leave in the north woods. A burned-out nonprofit executive who becomes a native plant herbalist to cure herself and then the bodies and psyches of others. Through it all, Springer weaves humor, grace and a luminous sense of the ordinary.

Tom Springer writes about the natural world and how people can live more deeply in the "wild nearby" through conservation, observation and contemplation. He has spent more than 30 years as a writer, editor and manager, most notably for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the University of Notre Dame. His two collections of essays, The Star in the Sycamore (Mission Point Press) and Looking for Hickories (University of Michigan Press) were both named as Michigan Notable Books by the State Library of Michigan. Tom's essays have appeared in publications such as Michigan Blue magazine, Notre Dame magazine and Front Porch Republic, and have aired in spoken form on National Public Radio. A native of Three Rivers, Michigan, Tom lives with his wife, Nancy, and two daughters in an 1860s farmhouse. He gardens, fishes, keeps bees, and most enjoyably, tends trees. (Although on average, his three apples trees produce enough for about three pies per season.) As a volunteer, Tom has served on the board of the St. Joseph County Conservation District and the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy. He holds a master's degree in journalism from the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.