By Amy Diaz
Pulitzer Prize finalist and best-selling author Ben Montgomery will speak at 4:30 p.m April 16 in the Lynn Pippenger Hall Auditorium.
Montgomery will present “The Long Haul: What two record-breaking pedestrians can teach us about the joy of the journey,” as part of the ongoing “Thinking through…Movement & Mobility” series hosted by the USF St. Petersburg History and Politics department.
Montgomery has written three biographies, two of which are about people who made history by walking.
His first biography, “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk,” was published in 2014. The novel is about Emma Gatewood, the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, and the first person to walk it twice and three times. She got the nickname “Grandma Gatewood” because she did all of this over the age of 65.
Her hike took place during the 1950s and ‘60s, and brought attention to the difficulties of the trail, which led to much-needed maintenance. Her hike likely saved the trail from disappearing.
Last year, his novel, “The Man Who Walked Backward,” was published. This was a biography of Plennie Wingo, a Texas man who walked around the world backward during the Great Depression.
Wingo was a victim of the Great Depression, having had his small restaurant foreclosed on by the bank. He turned to digging ditches to support his family before deciding to make his trek around the world to renew his sense of adventure.
Montgomery’s talk about their stories, and what they can teach us, is free and open to the public.
