John Elder

From 1973 to 2010 John Elder taught English and Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, where his special interests in the classroom were American nature writing, Romantic poetry, and Japan's haiku tradition. His three most recent books - Reading the Mountains of Home, The Frog Run and Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa - each combined discussions of literature and environmental history, descriptions of the Vermont landscape and memoir. Since retirement from full-time teaching he has devoted much of his time to learning about and playing Irish traditional music.