Isa­iah Mar­gulies is a mer­chant sea­man by day and writer by night. Much of his writ­ing is tech­ni­cal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly influ­enced by his time work­ing at sea. The broad­er Jew­ish dias­po­ra, and his own small part of it, guid­ed the over­ar­ch­ing nar­ra­tive that became his debut nov­el, Dias­po­ra.