Robert Wolf

BIOGRAPHY

For years, beginning at age 16 when I ran away from home, I have continued to travel America’s backwaters, searching for iconic American figures and regional folkways. In my search to know America, I have hitchhiked and ridden freight trains, lived in ten states and worked a multitude of jobs. I lived and worked on a ranch, taught philosophy and college composition, wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune, taught at the New Mexico State Penitentiary, did office temp work, taught biology in an inner-city school, clerked in a big box store, and more.

In 1990, with the help of Steven Meinbresse, I established Free River Press, a nonprofit publishing house whose primary purpose is to gather people without literary ambition into writing workshops to document their lives. To date, Free River Press has published 27 titles.

The press’s workshops and publications have been featured on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition,” and in all but one of the country's major daily newspaper.

Free River Press produces a nationally syndicated, weekly radio program, "American Mosaic with Robert Wolf," based on Free River Press stories, read by the authors.