Fishing Spirit Lake

Fishing Spirit Lake by Ted L. Estess

by Ted L. Estess

Ted L. Estess tells stories, not just about the South or fishing or fatherhood or loss, but also about the pattern of a life, of all our lives, stories both existential and metaphysical, about a future that seems (or is) both risky and random but that produces a past both coherent and meaningful, stories in which we can find both the confusion of a life and the wisdom to make sense of it, to make it whole.


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About the Author

Ted L. Estess

For thirty-one years, Ted Estess was the leader of Honors education at the University of Houston, first as Director of the Honors Program, and then, in 1993, as Founding Dean of the Honors College. While Dean, Estess often joined other Honors Faculty in teaching, the high quality of which was recognized by his receiving the University of Houston Teaching Excellence Award.

Though he left the deanship in August of 2008, Estess remains a member of the Honors College Faculty and a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Houston. In Honors, he also holds the Jane Morin Cizik Chair. Estess holds a Ph.D. in Humanities from Syracuse University. He has held visiting positions at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and at the University of Montana.

The author of a book on Elie Wiesel, Estess has also published on the work of Samuel Beckett and on novelists such as Walker Percy, Mary Gordon, William Kennedy, and Joseph Heller. A portion of Fishing Spirit Lake has been published in Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion. Estess serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the C.G. Jung Center, the KIPP Academy, the Holocaust Museum Houston, and the Houston Center for the Humanities and Public Policy. Nationally known for his work in the American Academy of Religion and the National Collegiate Honors Council, Estess has served as President of the Southwest Region of the American Academy of Religion and as Program Chair of the Arts, Religion, and Literature Section of the AAR. He is a Fellow of the Society for Arts, Religion, and Contemporary Culture, and is a frequent lecturer and consultant at high schools, colleges, and universities.