Tom Bodett got his start as a writer and radio personality as a regular commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered afternoon news program. Two collections of those commentaries were published in 1985 and 1987 by Addison-Wesley. Bodett hosted The End of the Road radio show from 1988 to 1991. This nationally broadcast commercial radio variety show featured a story by Bodett each week loosely based on the people and events around his hometown of Homer, Alaska. Two collections of those stories, The End of the Road and The Big Garage on Clear Shot were published in 1989 and 1990 by William Morrow. In 1996, Hyperion published Bodett’s first novel which had been serialized on the national radio program, Bodett & Company.

About that same time Jeff Dwyer of Dwyer & O’Grady discovered Bodett’s twelve-year-old character, Norman Tuttle hiding out in Bodett’s novel and the End of the Road story collections. Out of the blue, Dwyer called Bodett at his home in Homer, Alaska and suggested that Bodett revise the Norman Tuttle stories as picture books for young readers. Bodett, who bores easily and wouldn’t know a good idea if it bit him on the nose, didn’t want to rework old material, and he had no idea what a picture book manuscript looked like. So, instead he embarked on writing a whole new story with a cast of characters that became the Alaska adventure tale Williwaw!, published by Knopf Books for Young Readers in 1999.

Now, exposed to the wonderful possibilities of writing for kids, Bodett, along with Jeff Dwyer, and their partner Ben Manilla launched The Loose Leaf Book Company on public radio stations across the country. Loose Leaf used the medium of radio to profile the very best in books for kids and the people who make them. The program broadcast for more than two years on over two hundred twenty public radio stations and is still available online at www.looseleaf.org.

At this point in the journey, Bodett finally understood what Jeff Dwyer saw in Norman Tuttle. He turned his attention in Norman’s direction completely reworking the original stories, adding a few new ones, and finished the coming-of-age story Norman Tuttle on the Last Frontier which will be published in November 2004 by Knopf – a full eight years after Dwyer told him to do it. Every dog has his day.

Bodett is also the long-time spokesman for the Motel 6 lodging chain and his voice has been heard on many television and radio programs including Steven Spielberg’s Animaniacs and NBC’s Saturday Night Live. He hosted the PBS television series Travels on America’s Historic Trails with Tom Bodett and has written for The New York Times, The LA Times, and many other publications and productions. For more about Tom Bodett, school visits and presentations, go to his website at www.bodett.com.