Author John Olson will speak to Winchester Academy at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 1, at the Waupaca Area Public Library,
A Wisconsin native and writer, Olson retraced the journey that John Steinbeck chronicled in his best-selling book, Travels With Charlie.
Olson, author of Down John’s Road, interviewed Steinbeck’s sole surviving child, Thomas, before leaving on the trip in order to ensure authenticity. He traveled 12,673 miles through 34 states in 80 days in the same kind of truck as Steinbeck.
During the course of his journey, Olson talked with the homeless, got lost in New York City looking for Yankee stadium, befriended a moose in Maine, joked with convicts, and was nearly killed in Louisiana.
Originally from southern Wisconsin, Olson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1987 with a journalism degree after serving eight years in the U.S. Navy. He worked for Voice of America Radio in Munich, Germany, started a Christian radio program still heard on 1,000 stations worldwide and retired in 2003 as senior editor for Sound Publishing Inc. in the Seattle, Wash., area where he now resides.
Free and open to the public, this Winchester Academy program is sponsored by Judith and Gary Swenson of Waupaca.