About the Author
Jack Mayer, MD, MPH
Jack Mayer is a retired pediatrician and a writer. He began practicing pediatrics in 1976 in Enosburg Falls, Vermont, a small town in eastern Franklin County on the Canadian border. His was the first pediatric practice in that half of the county. He was a country doctor there for ten years, often bartering medical care for eggs, firewood, and knitted afghans. From 1987 – 1991 Dr. Mayer was a National Cancer Institute Fellow at Columbia University researching the molecular biology of childhood cancer. Most of his scientific writing was done during those four years. He was also an academic pediatrician at Columbia University’s Presbyterian Medical Center.
Dr. Mayer returned to Vermont in 1991 and established Rainbow Pediatrics in Middlebury, Vermont where he practiced primary care pediatrics until his retirement in 2021. He was an Instructor in Pediatrics at the University of Vermont School of Medicine and an advisor for pre-medical students at Middlebury College.
Throughout his career, Dr. Mayer has written short stories, poems, and essays about his years in pediatric practice and hiking The Long Trail in Vermont. He was a participant at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 2003 and 2005 for fiction, and in 2008 for poetry. LIFE IN A JAR: The Irena Sendler Project, his first book of non-fiction, is about Irena Sendler, an unknown Holocaust hero who rescued 2,500 children from the Warsaw ghetto. His award winning historical fiction, BEFORE THE COURT OF HEAVEN, is about the rise of the Third Reich.
Dr. Mayer’s collection of poetry, POEMS FROM THE WILDERNESS, won the Proverse Prize in 2019. These poems were all composed while solo hiking or skiing in the wilderness of Vermont and New Hampshire. Mayer shares his love of the backcountry, trail-walking, camping, and the “wilderness effect,” a unique sensation of aliveness and deep connection. Though deeply personal, he hopes they will resonate with those pieces of wilderness we all carry within us, and offer respite in these challenging pandemic times.
Mayer's new poetry collection, ENTANGLEMENTS, is inspired by relationships, large and small, and how quantum theory illuminates our connections. Every sub-atomic particle exists only in relationship to another. It seems that everything in the cosmos is dependent on interconnection. He reflects on the mysteries of our entanglements from the macroscopic experience of his pediatric practice in rural Vermont to the inconceivably small, old, and far away of quantum cosmology. These poems have marinated in wilderness hiking where they are composed and infused with the singular mindfulness of a quiet forest.
He lives in Middlebury, Vermont.
Book Awards: LIFE IN A JAR: The Irena Sendler Project
2015 - First Horizon Award - Non-fiction (Eric Hoffer Book Award)
2015 - Mom’s Choice Award – Gold Medal - Young Adult
2015 – IPNE (Independent Book Publishers of New England) Book Award - Winner – Book presentation and marketing
2014 - Readers’ Favorite Book Award – Gold Medal - Education
2014 - Benjamin Franklin Digital Award – Silver Honoree
2014 - Shelf Unbound Notable Book
2012 - IndieReader Discovery Award - Biography
2011 - Kansas Notable Book Award
2011 - da Vinci Eye (Eric Hoffer Book Award)
Book Awards: BEFORE THE COURT OF HEAVEN
2016 IndieReader Discovery Award – 1st Place - Fiction
2015 Nautilus Book Award Winner – Fiction – Silver medal
2016 Finalist – Grand Prize (Eric Hoffer Award) – Fiction
2016 First Horizon Award (Eric Hoffer Award) Finalist – Fiction
2016 Honorable Mention (Eric Hoffer Award) – Commercial Fiction
2015 Foreword Reviews INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award Finalist – Historical Fiction
2015 Mom’s Choice Award - Gold Medal – Historical Fiction
2015 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award - Best Novel
2015 Beverly Hills Book Awards – Finalist – “Faction” - fiction based on true stories.
A Best Indie Book of 2015 – IndieReader (5-stars)
Shelf Unbound – Notable Indie – 2015 Best Indie Books.
Book Awards: POEMS FROM THE WILDERNESS
Winner of the Proverse Prize 2019
