Kessler, Rod: - Educated at Harvard, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Arizona, Kessler is known primarily as a writer of fiction and the author of the award-winning short story collection Off in Zimbabwe. But even as a high school kid he was collecting rejection slips for his poetry, and he has persisted. In retirement, he has been shepherding into print the poems of Salem's eccentric writer, Malcolm Miller (1930-2014). Now a patron of coffee shops on Boston's North Shore, Kessler lives happily with his wife in Salem, in view of Smith Pool and Juniper Cove.