Where Authors Find Inspiration: Steinbeck, MacDonald, and the Call of the Road
Writers love to pretend inspiration arrives like lightning, but more often it shows up with dusty boots, a full tank of gas, and a dog who thinks every mile is an adventure. Two travelogues—written sixty years apart—prove that the open road has a way of shaking loose the stories we didn’t know we were carrying. John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and Larry MacDonald’s Travels with Elly share a surprising kinship. Both authors set out with a poodle riding shotgun. Both felt a tug to understand their country more deeply. Both believed that the best way to see a place is to move through it slowly, talking to strangers, watching the land change, and letting the journey rearrange their thinking. Two Journeys, Two Countries, One Instinct Steinbeck left Sag Harbor in 1960 because he feared he no longer knew the America he had spent decades writing about. He built a custom camper—Rocinante—and set off with Charley, his French poodle, for a 10,000‑mile loop around the U...