Martin Podskoch, a retired reading teacher from Delhi in the Catskills, became fascinated with fire towers when he hiked to a tower on Hunter Mountain in the Catskill Mountains in 1987. This resulted in his first book, Fire Towers of the Catskills: Their History and Lore (2000), which contains stories and pictures of the men and women who were observers and the forest rangers who supervised the towers.

Then Podskoch turned to the Adirondacks for his next two books, Adirondack Fire Towers: Their History and Lore, The Southern Districts (2003), and Adirondack Fire Towers: Their History and Lore, The Northern Districts (2005). The fire tower books were published by Purple Mountain Press and are now reprinted by Podskoch Press.

         In the spring of 2004, Martin teamed up with Sam Glanzman, a comic book illustrator for over fifty years, and published a weekly newspaper column, “Adirondack Stories,” for five years. Podskoch published two volumes, Adirondack Stories, Historical Sketches (2007) and Adirondack Stories II, 101 More Historical Sketches (2007), containing 251 illustrated panels from his weekly newspaper series.

          After completing fire tower books Podskoch wrote two books on the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 2011 Adirondack Civilian Conservation Corps Camps: History, Memories & Legacy of the CCC was published. In 2016 he published Connecticut Civilian Conservation Corps Camps: History, Memories & Legacy of the CCC.

         In 2014 Podskoch published a travel book, The Adirondack 102 Club: Your Passport & Guide to the North Country. It  has become the best-selling travel book in the Adirondacks. The book has descriptions of all the 102 Adirondack towns and interesting places to visit. It also has a place to journal and a passport space to get a stamp, sticker or signature. Those that visit the 102 towns get a Vagabond patch.

           Martin Podskoch is planning on writing another travel guide book called The Connecticut 169 Club and a book on Rhode Island’s Civilian Conservation Corps camps.

Podskoch also Volunteers on the Board Of Trustees for the Chatham Historical Society in his hometown of East Hampton, CT.