Raised in rural northwest Ohio, Jeff Ewing spent his boyhood exploring wooded creek beds and reading comic books by flashlight in a pup tent with his childhood friend Dave Bruns — the same Dave who would go on to play a central role in his memoir six decades later.

He earned a BS in Journalism and an MBA, beginning his career as a reporter for a small NBC affiliate before transitioning into business. Over the next thirty years he built a career in human resources, ultimately co-founding Blake Street Group in 2007, a management consulting firm Jeff helped lead until he retired in 2020.

He and his wife, Kathy, a retired RN, have been married 48 years. Their son Adam, formerly a financial reporter, is now a partner with a Stockholm-based communications consulting firm; their daughter Katie is a special education teacher in Colorado. They have seven grandchildren.

It was their son Alex who introduced Jeff to manual typewriters — a gift that became a lifeline. Jeff drafted this memoir on a 1966 Olympia, the same machine he now uses for personal correspondence. Alex is also the heart of this book. After a struggle beginning in adolescence with major depressive disorder and addiction, Jeff and Kathy lost him a few years ago. They had tried everything — every treatment, every intervention, every form of love they knew how to give. This memoir is the story of that journey, and of what it takes to find your way back to joy when the unthinkable happens.

When he isn't writing, Jeff can be found fly fishing or somewhere on the open road — he and Kathy take an annual month-long RV trip to visit loved ones and discover new corners of the US and Canada.