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​​Originally from Waterbury, Vermont, I lived and worked in Japan for three years, spent ten years in British Columbia, Canada, and eventually learned the art of deconstruction and cabin building in Missoula, Montana. I now live with my wife, Joyce Mphande-Finn, and our cat, Lutsa, in Havre, Montana.
 
 
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I am also the author of Wild Delicate Seconds: 29 Wildlife Encounters (OSU Press 2012) and On a Benediction of Wind: Poems and Photographs (Chatwin Press 2020) a collection of my poems paired with landscape photographer Barbara Michelman's images. I've been a freelance writer for years and have published in a wide variety of magazines, newspapers, literary journals and anthologies. To learn more about my writing life and read samples of my work you can visit my other website
Cover, On a Bendediction of Wind - Cover-100.jpg

         How it all began, and why.​

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​The best explaination to date is the essay I recently did for Montana Quarterly. A pdf of it is posted here, and on the In The News page. This essay speaks to why I like living in small spaces with a wood stove and oil lamp light.
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There is also this short text adapted from the pages of
Tiny Homes Simple Shelter, a Shelter Publication, by Lloyd Kahn.
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For the better part of my 30's I lived in British Columbia, Canada, and found myself taking Henry David Thoreau's dictum, “Simplify, simply” more and more seriously. For economic, aesthetic and quasi-spiritual reasons, I voluntarily moved into smaller and smaller places, until finally ending up in a 7 x 12 “gypsy wagon” made by a woodworker friend. Built on an old haywagon the cabin had no electricity or plumbing, but an abundance of charm. With an antique 3-burner propane stove, tiny Jotel woodstove, and a set of deep-cycle batteries to run my laptop, I parked it on a friend's property and settled in for the best years of my life.
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After leaving B.C., I stumbled on a house-sitting position in Potomac, Montana, 45 minutes outside Missoula. The person I was house-sitting for dismantled old barns for a living, and while away allowed me unlimited access to his shop and lumber supply. That winter, I built my first “microhome” and in the spring moved it onto a corner of the same property, rent free. The lesson I learned in British Columbia is that if you make it cute enough, people will be willing to let you park it just about anywhere.
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Because the cabin 8' x 12' was built with reclaimed lumber it came ready-made with character. Never a fan of uniformity, I mixed and matched the species and widths of the paneling. The exposed ceiling joists were cross ties from old telephone poles, insulator holes and all. I'd lived in Japan for three years and admired the tea houses with their tiny doors where in ancient times the samurai had to take off their armor, ducking to enter, symbolically and literally “leaving their violence outside.” I built a 4' x 2' door accordingly. The entire cabin began with a with a daydream of wide windowsills so my cat, 42, could sit and look out. The next winter I built a second and towed it into Missoula to show at a Farmer's Market. It sold to the very first person who cycled by, along with a promise to create another.

Back then I'd never heard the term microhome. I didn't know I was part of a “movement”. It just made sense to me to live as I did. It gave me great satisfaction and joy. My definition of success I inherited from my father. “Be happy.” I was. I went on to design and built more cabins, eight in all, all in the 8' x12' ballpark and all with 100% reclaimed materials. I now live in Elizabeth, New Jersey, build on commission and I am the editor of High Desert Journal, a literary and fine arts magazine, as well as a freelance writer.
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