who loves a good writer

I was stumped the other day.
I wanted to start a new portrait, but I wanted to find a subject that I didn't know but admired.  I fumbled around the net typing up names that came to mind.  I have been so influenced by so many interesting people in so many parts of the human experience it as hard to pick.
Try picking the perfect cherry on a cherry tree.  There are too many.  Some not so good, but the more you look the more you find.

I have always loved words.  I have not always been a reader, not until I hit my twenties.  I started working at a local used bookstore and taking literature classes at the University of Tn and got hooked.  I was in.  I loved anyone who loved words.  I loved ready the classics and loved studying the greats.

Hawthorn.
Whitman.
Dickens.
Fitzgerald.
Bronte.
Alcott.
Steinbeck.
Twain.
Faulkner.
Thoreau.
Emerson.


You love them all.  You love them for different reasons.  The world won't, couldn't be the same without them.

I started my search with all above and I chose to draw Steinbeck.  Everyone has heard of all his great works....Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, East of Eden, but there is a very special small, less than 200 pages, book called Travels with Charlie, that I went crazy for will travel around the northern coast of California.  It is worth ready and then some!  I often think it is as much a classic as all the "famous" ones.  If you love dogs and you love feeling free, you should READ this book!

Thanks Steinbeck!   You are someone worth reading and worth trying to draw on paper!
This is a first draft.  I have a plan!