Welcome to my web world, which has not been updated in a bit. I’ve leaned more into teaching the last few years, becoming a full-time, fixed-term faculty member in the English Department at Central Michigan University. In my own student days, I waffled from class clown (until the nuns beat me down) to the terribly shy kid in the back of public school classrooms. So it’s hard to think of myself as being a teacher with something to say. Thankfully, most of my students aren’t listening.
In summer 2026, as I teach one online class, I’m happy to get back to some part-time work with the Gratiot County Herald. I prefer profiles and old people to city-county business, and I’m lucky to work for an editor there who allows me to do some storytelling, as everybody has one.
Hard to believe it’s been a half decade now since Loyola Press published my book, Though the Odds Be Great or Small. It was my pandemic project, co-authored with Terry Brennan, of Notre Dame fame. The book explores Brennan’s time as both player and young coach for the Fighting Irish in the the 1940s and 1950s. All a bit before my time, and I wish my father had been around for consultation (he lived through those times), on the historical memoir. Ironically, Coach Brennan, named to the ND helm at just 25 years of age, was once famous for being so accomplished at a young age. He was 91 when I met him and died just in September 2021, just a few weeks after the book came out.
I would love the chance to write another book. But I’ve written one, planted a tree, and fathered a son. Someone said you should do all three of those thngs in life. Probably not my father, who planted lots of seeds, but never wrote a book.
I got started as an editor and publisher more than three decades ago, when I didn’t have sense to know any better. Sport Literate, the literary journal I founded as a graduate student at Columbia College Chicago, celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2025. Over that time, we’ve published 1,000-plus poets and writers and I’ve managed thousands of dollars in grant, donor, and subscriber money. Most importantly, I’ve kept a critically renowned journal in print in an increasingly online world.
Most of my professional writing, up until 2021 anyway, focused on higher education, often in the form of magazine features and online profiles. I’ve written about two Olympic gold medalists, three astronauts, and many accomplished faculty, students, and alumni from two of my alma maters. Working for the Purdue engineers, I provided the editorial lead on more than 40 different magazines. I’ve also written nearly 50 features for the Purdue Alumnus, including 13 cover stories.
I hope to be posting some new Herald stories here soon. My resume could be updated, too, but I’m eyeing retirement in a few years (come on 2030), so I’m not really pitching myself for anything at the moment.
William Meiners