I am a writer and author, but I'm also a popular speaker, because I like talking at least as much as I like writing. My favorite topics are travel, food, history, and geography. Destination Heartland: A Guide to Discovering the Midwest's Remarkable Past is my newest work. Based on discoveries I made as I drove around the region, largely while researching my previous books, it was my way of sharing with others the things that delighted me. Of course, I couldn't see everything, but the book does include suggestions of how to make your own discoveries.

My previous book, Pigs, Pork, and Heartland Hogs: From Wild Boar to Baconfest, was released in October 2018. Like my previous book, Midwest Maize, Pigs is also a food history. I love the surprises and connections to our lives of food history, and it has become one of my favorite fields of study in the last 30 years.

My first book, Waltzing Australia, recounts my six-month, 20,000-mile journey around and across the land Down Under. It is crammed with information, as well as more than a few adventures. In 2010, it won the Mom's Choice Award for travel writing.

The blog listed below is the one I created for Waltzing Australia, and it continues to feature information and insights into Australia, as well as sharing adventures from return trips. But that's not my only blog. MidwestMaize.com focuses on my travels in the American Midwest, as I continue to research the factors that helped shape the region. I also have a blog titled The World's Fare (http://www.theworldsfare.org) for food history, food trivia, and travel to places other than Australia and the Midwest (37 countries and counting, so a fair bit of information there, as well).

For those who are interested in my speaking, the topics include histories of rum, corn, pigs, and the spice trade, plus travels in Australia and Mongolia. (And the spice trade presentation is actually kind of a hybrid -- spice trade history plus my travels in southern India.) You can find more info about the topics and where I'm presenting on my website.

Hope you'll join me for some of the fun, surprising adventure that both food history and world travel offer.