"Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration" follows the evolution of a high school English teacher as he develops a creative and innovative teaching style despite being juxtaposed against a public education system bent on didactic, normalizing regulations and political demands.

Doherty crafts an engaging nonfiction story that utilizes memoir, anecdote, poetry, and dialogue to explore how mixing creativity and pedagogy can change the way budding students visualize creative writing: A chunk of firewood plunked on a classroom table becomes part of a sawmill, a mine timber, an Anasazi artifact...it also becomes a poem, a song, an essay, and a memoir. The long, slender feather of a Sandhill Crane evokes Muir, Thoreau, Audubon, Leopold, Carson...even parables of lore and magic.

Creativity holds the stitches of this book together and runs throughout each chapter like fragrant woodsmoke.