reDiscovering America

Born into a farm family in the late 1940s, J.L. Fredrick lived his youth in rural Western Wisconsin, a modest but comfortable life not far from the Mississippi River. His father was a farmer, and his mother, an elementary school teacher. He attended a one-room country school for his first seven years of education. Wisconsin has been home all his life, with exception of a few years in Minnesota and Florida. After college in La Crosse, Wisconsin and a stint with Uncle Sam during the Viet Nam era, the next few years were unsettled as he explored and experimented with life’s options. He entered into the transportation industry in 1975 where he remained until retirement in 2012. Since 2001 he has thirteen published novels to his credit, several non-fiction history volumes, and a collection of short stories. He was a featured author during Grand Excursion 2004 with his Mississippi River stories.

Since his retirement, JL Fredrick has taken to the road, living full-time in an RV. He claims to be re-discovering America, searching out the out-of-the-way places that were not easily accessible during his time as an over-the-road trucker. He has no desire to travel abroad; there is so much wonderful country to see in the USA.

"No, a stranger from some exotic land didn't steal my heart, or anything else, for that matter! I'm probably the most unlikely person to become a writer... I grew up on a Wisconsin farm, and eventually, after college, the Army, and retirement from a drag racing career, I became an Interstate Transportation Specialist (truck driver) and I never learned the cello. (Blew a mean trumpet when I was in high school, though.) I've traveled the entire U.S., much of Canada, a tiny bit of Mexico, and did that tourist thing on a cruise to the Bahamas. Learned enough Spanish to order breakfast in Laredo, Texas, and enough Eastern-ese to know not to order "regular" coffee in Gloucester, Massachusettes. If I could travel back in time to meet any one person, it would be a hard choice between Will Rogers and Mark Twain. They say every writer puts a little of himself into his stories. Reckon that's so, 'cause the Mississippi River, steamboats, thunderstorms, and old buildings fascinate me, and you'll find a heap of all that in my prose."

Home is wherever the RV is parked!