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Such Is Life in Vacationland: Essays and Anecdotes from Ohio's North Coast
In this newly curated and edited collection of "Field Notes" columns, Anson award-winning author John B. Marek offers an evocative glimpse into his early years growing up on Ohio's Lake Erie coast. With his trademark mix of humor, nostalgia, curiosity, and life lessons, he crafts a compelling picture of life in a tourist town during the '60s and '70s. From thoughtful essays on the transcendent nature of friendship, work, and mortality to a piano-playing chicken and a discussion of pre-historic cooking techniques, you never know what lurks on the next page... or in the green-black depths of the Sandusky Bay.
209 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 22, 2022
About the author
John B. Marek
11 books3 followersJohn B. Marek is an Amazon bestselling author, rural advocate, certified outdoor guide, and semi-reformed songwriter. A North Carolina resident for over three decades, he swapped the Lake Erie coast of his youth for the Blue Ridge Mountains, where his authentic writing explores the raw, absurd, and sometimes macabre intersections of nature and the human heart.
Marek is the creator of the North Carolina-set Owen Sinclair mystery series, which currently includes Craven Fork and Hellbender, and will continue with Dark & Deep in November 2026. His nonfiction work ranges from Breakfast at Midway, a bestselling meditation on quality of life, work, and place, to Ben and the Art of Lawnmower Maintenance, a tribute to his greatest-generation father.
A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Marek spent twenty years as a rural economic development director before turning to full-time writing in 2023. That career taught him to read a town—how legend, legacy, and ambition grind against one another—and those mechanics show up in every small community and backcountry holler he puts on the page.
Today, he balances a 5,000-word-a-week writing habit with the maintenance of an off-grid mountain camp and volunteer work at a faith-based community garden. He also produces Reveries, a weekly audio essay that examines modern life through a decidedly rural-retro lens. A self-described "semi-reformed" songwriter, he recently released Uncanny Valley, an AI-assisted concept album that resurrects lyrics he first scribbled into notebooks in the 1970s and '80s.
“I’ve spent half my life trying to build communities from the outside in,” says Marek, “but I’ve realized the real heart of a place is found in its hushed mysteries and its dark corners. My stories live in a world of gravel roads and quiet regrets. They find a home where the shadows are long, and secrets run deep, and the only thing that cuts through the darkness are those sudden, sharp flashes of courage.”
Marek lives in North Carolina and can be found online at www.loose-gravel.com.
Marek is the creator of the North Carolina-set Owen Sinclair mystery series, which currently includes Craven Fork and Hellbender, and will continue with Dark & Deep in November 2026. His nonfiction work ranges from Breakfast at Midway, a bestselling meditation on quality of life, work, and place, to Ben and the Art of Lawnmower Maintenance, a tribute to his greatest-generation father.
A graduate of Bowling Green State University, Marek spent twenty years as a rural economic development director before turning to full-time writing in 2023. That career taught him to read a town—how legend, legacy, and ambition grind against one another—and those mechanics show up in every small community and backcountry holler he puts on the page.
Today, he balances a 5,000-word-a-week writing habit with the maintenance of an off-grid mountain camp and volunteer work at a faith-based community garden. He also produces Reveries, a weekly audio essay that examines modern life through a decidedly rural-retro lens. A self-described "semi-reformed" songwriter, he recently released Uncanny Valley, an AI-assisted concept album that resurrects lyrics he first scribbled into notebooks in the 1970s and '80s.
“I’ve spent half my life trying to build communities from the outside in,” says Marek, “but I’ve realized the real heart of a place is found in its hushed mysteries and its dark corners. My stories live in a world of gravel roads and quiet regrets. They find a home where the shadows are long, and secrets run deep, and the only thing that cuts through the darkness are those sudden, sharp flashes of courage.”
Marek lives in North Carolina and can be found online at www.loose-gravel.com.
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