Sneak Peek: The 2026 Winter Retreats — Video Dispatch
Tuesday, January 21 2025
Clay with a look at what's coming for the 2026 Winter Retreats at beautiful Lochsa Lodge.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Shakespeare, Thoreau, and Ed Abbey in the Bitterroot Mountains
Tuesday, January 14 2025
Clay reports from his annual humanities retreat near the Montana-Idaho border in the Northern Rockies.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
How to Consult Your Destiny Via Thoreau’s Walden
Tuesday, January 07 2025
During a long life of hard reading, Henry David Thoreau’s Walden is the book that helps me understand what it is to be human.
- Published in Books
Reading Walden and Wrestling With Thoreau
Tuesday, December 31 2024
As I look to the start of the new year, Thoreau’s 1854 classic, Walden, still deeply challenges and inspires me.
- Published in Features
Reading Charles Dickens for Christmas — Have Desk Will Travel
Tuesday, December 17 2024
Clay does a special public reading from the works of his favorite English Novelist, Charles Dickens.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
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
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
John Steinbeck: The Journals of a Novelist
Tuesday, October 08 2024
Two journals John Steinbeck kept while writing his two most famous novels provide an intimate look into the author’s creative process.
- Published in Features
Interstellar News From NASA
Tuesday, August 27 2024
Apparently lost and 15 billion miles from Earth, NASA’s Voyager 1 calls home.
- Published in Features
Uniquely American Concord, Massachusetts — Video Dispatch
Monday, August 19 2024
Clay spent a morning in Concord, Massachusetts, while traveling through New England this spring. Located northeast of Boston, Concord has deep roots in American history and culture.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road