Bred and buttered in Dry Tavern, PA, Jeff Moredock was, before he gainfully retired in 2004, a farmer, folksinger, minister, teacher, coach chaplain, headmaster, and a chief operating officer. Married to a saint, he and his wife, Etta, have two children and four grandchildren. They have been summer residents of Essex since 1980.

He first began writing poetry in 1979 when he was the head of North Country School in Lake Placid. In a fit of scotch-fueled frenzy he wrote a long narrative poem that included the names of the school’s 87 children, 25 teachers, 10 staff members, and countless community pets. Read aloud at the school’s annual Christmas dinner, it received sufficient praise to encourage him to continue the practice through his career as headmaster at three schools. More poetry followed, most often poetic testimonials for various friends’ birthdays, weddings, and retirements.

Poems about Essex started to bubble up about the turn of the century, and since then he has written more than a dozen, all noting and celebrating people, places, and events in and around Essex. He has published a collection of poems, Poems from Essex & Elsewhere and a collection of short stories, Nine Holes, Nine Lives: The Front Nine. He has also written an unpublished mystery novel, A Zebra in the Lake, set in Essex. Suffice to say, he loves words and he loves Essex.