A new book and ready to roll again ...
Welcome to ROLLING DREAMS PRESS -- and Northwest photojournalist D. C. Jesse Burkhardt's visual tour of North America's railroads. ROLLING DREAMS PRESS is a visual and written celebration of life, travel under the stars, and the magic of North American Railroads ... Burkhardt's books are dedicated to the spirit of boxcars rolling through the star-filled night ... The sweet scent of woodchips and creosote pulled along in the wake of a passing train ... the sound of a distant locomotive's air horn reaching across the open land ... Sunlight shining off the sides of swaying freight cars ... the distant, emerald twinkle of a signal light miles away through the darkness.
LATEST PROJECT: OUT in JULY 2009 ~ THE CROWBAR HOTEL, a sequel to TRAVELOGUE FROM AN UNRULY YOUTH: Burkhardt describes a unique journey across Canada (primarily by freight train) in 1979, in which he and fellow traveler Spider Rider encountered barriers and setbacks (and threats of deportation) all along the way as they traveled from Vancouver Island all the way to Tornoto ...
HELP CELEBRATE AMERICA'S RAILROADS ... Support Rolling Dreams Press!
Publishing with color photos and high-quality paper is costly, and we want to work with American or Canadian printers to keep the jobs local and benefit workers in our region. Our next book is virtually ready to go and turnaround could be swift ... Expect a lot of Oregon images, including a chapter on the now departed Bailey Branch in the Willamette Valley ... lots of SP scenes never before released ~ SD9s, cabooses, branchline runs .... We envision the new book capturing a slice of America that so many of us grew up with, and in too many cases is vanishing.
THANKS for looking at our site.
And here's to those lonesome boxcars rolling ...
~ D. C. Jesse Burkhardt
P.O. Box 1054
White Salmon, Wash. 98672
E-mail: rollingdreams@gorge.net
Note: Please support the following book dealers with your RR book purchases. These three business owners have been very supportive of ROLLING DREAMS PRESS over the years ... these dealers offer great customer service and have many rare books that you won't be able to find elsewhere!
ROBERT GAVORA ~ FINE & RARE BOOKS, Talent, Oregon: finebooks@robertgavora.com
KAREN'S BOOKS ~ San Marcos, California: info@karensbooks.com
DERAIL BOOKS ~ Eugene, Oregon
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15 YEARS and SEVEN BOOKS FROM D. C. JESSE BURKHARDT:
BACKWOODS RAILROADS: Branchlines & Shortlines of Western Oregon (1994) Hardbound/168 pages/includes 16 pages of color/8.5" x 11"/$45 NOTE: THIS BOOK IS NOW OUT OF PRINT (that's 2,200+ printed and gon...) Washington State University Press: 1-800-354-7360
ROLLING DREAMS: Portraits of the Northwest's Railroad Heritage (1997) Softcover/88 pages/78 color, 12 B&W photos/8.5" x 10.5"/$38 NOTE: THIS BOOK IS NOW OUT OF PRINT (1,200 printed and sold out ...)
Rolling Dreams Press
E-mail: rollingdreams@gorge.net
FREIGHT WEATHER: The Art of Stalking Trains (2001) Hardbound/120 pages/126 color photos/8.5" x 11"/$45
Rolling Dreams Press. NOTE: THIS BOOK IS NEARLY OUT OF PRINT. AS OF JANUARY 2010, there are only 30 books left in our warehouse.
E-mail: rollingdreams@gorge.net
RAILROADS OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE (2004) Softcover/128 pages/187 B&W photos/6" x 9"/$21.99
Arcadia Publishing: 1-888-313-2665 ~ www.arcadiapublishing.com
THE ANN ARBOR RAILROAD (2005) Softcover/128 pages/185 B&W photos/images/6" x 9"/$21.99
Arcadia Publishing: 1-888-313-2665 ~ www.arcadiapublishing.com
TRAVELOGUE FROM AN UNRULY YOUTH (2007) Softcover/176 pages/4 color photos (cover/back cover), 1 B&W photo/8.5" x 5.5"/$18.75
Rolling Dreams Press
E-mail: rollingdreams@gorge.net
THE CROWBAR HOTEL: By Freight Train Across Canada (2009) Softcover/208 pages/3 color photos (cover/back cover), 35 B&W photos/includes maps/9" x 6"/$15
Rolling Dreams Press
E-mail: rollingdreams@gorge.net
D. C. Jesse Burkhardt on an Ann Arbor caboose in the railroad's Owosso freight yard, 1974. Former Ypsilanti, Michigan, resident M. Groshans "captured" the author in this scene ... and shared some unique time with him riding on the Ann Arbor line.
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ANN ARBOR CONNECTIONS: A night with Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band in Portland: On Feb. 17, 2007, after a day of selling books at the Portland Expo Center, SegerFile exec Scott Sparling got us excellent floor tickets to the show ~ and after more than two hours of hot music from the Midwest Heartland where we were born, Scott, Marie, and I ~ all born in southern Michigan ~ were among a handful of fortunate ones with backstage passes to meet with the band members. Somehow Scott and I ended up at a table with Alto Reed ~ who, along with Seger himself, is truly a focal point of the band's music and energy. A passage in my new book singles Reed out for his heroic, inspiring sax solo in Martin, Michigan, in July 1977 ~ delivered from a hot air balloon.
I had brought one signed copy of "Travelogue" with me to the concert, hoping to get it to Seger, as the power of his music is one of the threads running through the narrative. In the end, it was Alto who walked out of the Rose Garden with a copy of my book in his hand, and that was a powerful vision for a writer working to cut through the corporate stranglehold on creativity in this nation.
Alto Reed's music is poetic and pure, anyone who has heard him play knows that. But more than that ~ his heart is in the right place, too. He sees what the corporate deciders are doing to the music industry, and he rebels against it. Bravo. Check out Reed's hot "Cool Breeze" CD at his Web site ~ www.altoreed.com ~ And don't just download the CD, go out and buy a copy. Otherwise, the corporations get fatter and the artist gets less than he deserves.
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"Properly we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand." ~ Ezra Pound
FREIGHT WEATHER: Barreling through the Columbia River Gorge ...
Other NEWS:~
The ANN ARBOR RAILROAD has sold 4,000+ to date. RAILROADS OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE has also been reprinted several times, with 5,000 and counting sold so far. THANK YOU to all the supporters of my work.
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{New in 2007} "TRAVELOGUE FROM AN UNRULY YOUTH"
Travelogue From an Unruly Youth describes the author's traveling of the North American continent by freight train in the late 1970s. More than that, he offers a poignant portrait of the relationship he left behind as part of the price he paid to ride for so many months.From his intro to the book: "Burkhardt's 'Travelogue' details a hidden and unconventional world, weaving a romantic tale of roadside mystery and the universe-altering power of love."
Burkhardt, who was born in Michigan, offers a glimpse into a vanished world as he describes events from his railroad tour of North America in the 1970s. Many of the tracks and trains he rode no longer exist, and his experiences can never be repeated. His journey on the Chief Wawatam is particularly poignant, given its demise and with the perspective of the many decades that have passed since he rode across the Straits there ...