John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was an American writer who grew up in California in the Salinas Valley. He wrote stories inspired by the common everyday people he met. His most notable novels included Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and Travels with Charley. These tales of hard scrabble life tell stories with the themes of people who faced hardships head on and persevered to overcome them.

I typed his portrait because I love Steinbeck’s ability to tell stories without pretention. Gritty stories about real people with real struggles. I will always remember the family vacation we took with our children to Montana in which my son read Of Mice and Men aloud to us all in the car. There was a hush and an energy in the car as we drove through farming areas contemplating the dilemmas of the characters in that story. That story made us all wonder about the challenges in people’s lives that elude us in our attempts to understand them.