Bill Birns, Poet and Historian / by Sharon Israel

LISTEN to my September 10th, 2024 WIOX show (also a podcast!) featuring poet, writer and historian Bill Birns.  Bill brings his great knowledge of Catskills history and his deep affinity with Ralph Waldo Emerson to the show and reads from his work-in-progress The Cooper Shop.

Bill Birns was honored to be named one of 50 Stewards of the Catskills by the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, on the occasion of the Center’s 50th birthday. A citizen of Delaware County, for over 50 years, Bill has long been active in the community.

Bill is the author of the recently re-released A Catskill Catalog, available from Purple Mountain Press (nysbooks.com); I Was Corning a Beaver Like You Do: Joe Hewitt, John Burroughs, Mountain Culture (John Burroughs Woodchuck Lodge & Mountain Arts Media); and two books of locally-focused verse: The Myth in the Mountain and Fleischmanns in Verse.

  A Ph.D. in Rhetoric & Linguistics, Bill taught a couple generations of Catskill Mountain kids at Margaretville Central School and Onteora High School. He lives in Fleischmanns with wife, Gayla, and dog, Murray Wagner.