I am a writer and a collector. When I was a kid, I collected rocks. As an adult, I collected islands and wrote about them in my book "Great Lakes Island Escapes: Ferries and Bridges to Adventure" (Wayne State University Press, 2016). Then I got to collect the Great Lakes themselves. My juvenile nonfiction book, "All About the Great Lakes" (Blue River Press) is coming out in July 2019. Through Dunphy Consulting Services, I offer individual coaching services for writers, assist with book proposals and manuscripts, and facilitate writing workshops and retreats. I also teach prose-writing workshops for Springfed Arts. I have always lived in the tri-county area of the Lower Peninsula in the “Mitten State” and grew up visiting the Great Lakes--Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, in particular. But, for the last 25 years, once the ice is off the lake and the ferry is running again, I spend time at my cottage on Ontario’s Pelee Island in Lake Erie. On weekends there, I collect fossils and beach glass on the west shore. I also collect the ideas materializing above the waves, hovering just at the horizon. And, regardless of what else I happen to be collecting at the moment, I'm always collecting words and stories, connecting and combining bits of information in ways that I find fascinating. Recently, those collections are focused on trees.