023 - Jeff Metcalf - Back Cast, Fly-Fishing and Other Such Matters

A discussion about the late Jeff Metcalf 's book, Back Cast: Fly-Fishing and Other Such Matters (University of Utah Press, 2018), along with a handful of experiences from host Brenden Rensink.

 

Jeff Metcalf was assistant professor of English at the University of Utah. He was an award-winning essayist and playwright, and an avid fly-fisher.

Sadly, he passed away the very week we were set to record an interview about his latest book, Back Cast: Fly-Fishing and Other Such Matters. Still wanting to share his writings, I restructured this episode to work as best as it could. I share some of the questions I wanted to ask Jeff, read some passages from Back Cast that evoked something in me, and shared a handful of my own stories that Jeff's fly-fishing tales made me think of. It is a bit unconventional and features much more of me than I am usually comfortable with, but I hope it serves as a modest tribute to Jeff's literary work.

Jeff's obituary can be viewed here.

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 Podcast Notes:

• Host and Producer Brenden W. Rensink is Associate Director of the Redd Center, an Associate Professor of History at BYU, General Editor of the Intermountain Histories project, and author of the 2018 book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. Links to other publications and projects here: https://linktr.ee/bwrensink
• Support provided by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University.
  
• Podcast Music was written and recorded by local Provo composer by Micah Dahl Anderson.
• Episodes are recorded via Skype or in person and amateurishly engineered and produced by Professor Rensink.
• To submit a book to be considered for a podcast episode, email writingwestwardpodcast@byu.edu.