Bill Heavey was born in Birmingham, Alabama, so that his mother would not have to endure the shame of having had a Yankee child. The first article he ever published as about teaching children to write poetry. This was probably the high point of his career. He descended into travel writing, profiles and finally into first person narrative.
He is an editor-at-large for Field & Stream, is still not exactly sure what that means, but figures it's better than an editor-behind-bars. He also writes the back page column, "A Sportsman's Life."
Bill is the author of "If You Didn't Bring Jerky, What Did I Just Eat?", a collection of his Field & Stream work, and "It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It: Misadventures of a Suburban Hunter-Gatherer." In which he attempts to close the distance between himself and what he eats, earning many valuable - and usually accidental, also hilarious -- lessons along the way.
("Edible," for example, is very different from "tasty." Also it's harder to kill a squirrel with a hoe than you'd think).
His newest book is "You're Not Lost If You Can Still See the Truck: The Further Adventures of America's Everyman Outdoorsman." This collection spans Bill's career, from early musings about taking dancing lessons and why men hate shopping, and through the years chronicled within tracks his evolution both as a hunter and a father.