The Only Love Project’s Bill Murphy (BM) recently sat down with Robert Wolf (RW), co-founder and director of Free River Press, which bills itself as “…a nonprofit publishing house whose primary mission is to develop a literary mosaic of America written by people from all walks of life.”

Bob is also the author of numerous books, including An American Mosaic: Prose and Poetry by Everyday Folk and Jump Start: How to Write from Everyday Life, both published by Oxford University Press, The Writer Within, and The Triumph of Technique: The Industrialization of Agriculture and the Destruction of Rural America.

What follows is a transcript of our chat. Many thanks to Bob for his time, and immense patience.

BM: Briefly tell us your background. What would you like others to know about you?

RW: Well, I’ve traveled the country extensively. When I was sixteen, I decided I was going to work every job in the country, live in every town and city, and have conversations with everyone. Not long afterwards—I think I must have been 16 or 17—I took off. I was living in Connecticut. I took a train to New York and hitchhiked to Ohio to visit my grandparents. I stayed there maybe a month or so, and that began a lifelong habit of wandering around the country. I’ve lived in ten different states. When I was nineteen I lived in a little town in central New Mexico. I was the only Anglo in that town; maybe 65 people lived there. I was there for Continue reading →