Why I’m Changing The Channel
Tuesday, January 28 2025
Clay details how cable news has long failed to reliably serve Americans, why he is tuning out, and what he’ll do instead.
- Published in Features
21,000 Miles Around America — Why I Did It and What I Learned
Saturday, January 18 2025
Clay sat down with editors at LTA to answer questions and discuss his recent 41 State, 21,000 mile journey around America.
- Published in Features
My John Steinbeck Tour: A Preliminary Report — What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been
Tuesday, December 10 2024
Beginning in April 2024 and concluding just before Thanksgiving, Clay traveled over 21,000 miles and visited 41 states, roughly following John Steinbeck’s route as chronicled in Travels with Charley. Clay notes he undertook the cross-country journey partly to gain his own appraisal of America as it approaches its 250th birthday.
- Published in Features
The Great but Forgotten Conservationist John F. Lacey
Monday, November 25 2024
While John Steinbeck was not much interested in National Parks, he traveled through a nation whose conservation footprint was indelibly shaped by visionary Iowa Congressman John Lacey.
- Published in Features
A Visit to Medgar Evers’ Home — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, November 19 2024
Clay visits Medgar Evers’ home, now a national monument. Medgar Evers was killed by a white supremacist here, in front of his house, on June 12, 1963.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Majestic Confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers
Thursday, November 14 2024
John Wesley Powell, Edward Abbey and hiking Canyonlands National Park.
- Published in Features
Route 66 and The Grapes of Wrath
Monday, November 11 2024
I’ve been at both ends of U.S. Route 66 this year, the highway we associate with John Steinbeck and the Joad family of The Grapes of Wrath.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Touring Glendive, Montana’s “Biblical History” Dinosaur and Fossil Museum — Video Dispatch
Monday, November 04 2024
The Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in eastern Montana presents its detailed fossil displays in the context of “Biblical history.”
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Recollections in Dallas: A Pivot of American History
Saturday, November 02 2024
While in Dallas, Texas, on his Steinbeck Travels with Charley Tour, Clay revisits places and memories connected with President John Kennedy’s tragic assassination on November 22, 1963.
- Published in Features
Reports of the Book’s Demise are Greatly Exaggerated
Tuesday, October 22 2024
A stop at a West Texas Barnes & Noble persuades Clay that books remain alive and kicking.
- Published in Features