Bog Tender is a study of the act of writing and of nature and where the two intersect. George Szanto, an accomplished fiction writer, lives and writes on a bog, and for him this natural phenomenon has become a metaphor for life and the creative process. Rather than filling in the wetland that cuts his island property in two, Szanto has embraced it as a site of inspiration.

Divided into twelve chapters-one for each month of the year-this memoir explores how Szanto's writing process is affected by the bog's transformations throughout the seasons. He examines his memories and how the place where land and water meet reminds him of his past. In each chapter, Szanto has gone searching in his own memory bog for the moments of greatest consequence to him, from meeting his future wife to becoming a parent to remembrances of his mother and father to his adventures in Mexico. Set in a place where city is left behind for a friendlier world of small community culture and rural space, Bog Tender is about the intricate connections that evolve under and above the water.