William Least Heat Moon

Biography

Least Heat-Moon has Osage and European-American ancestry. The Trogdon family name comes from his Euro-American lineage, and the Heat-Moon name reflects his Osage lineage. William's father is Heat-Moon, his elder brother is Little Heat-Moon, and he is Least Heat-Moon. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Least Heat-Moon grew up in Missouri. He attended public schools and the University of Missouri, where he earned bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees in English, as well as a bachelor's degree in photojournalism. He was a member of the Beta-Theta chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon. He served as a professor of English at the university.

Least Heat-Moon resides in Rocheport, Missouri. This small town in Boone County is located along the Missouri River about 10 miles west of Columbia.

Works

Blue Highways is a chronicle of a three-month-long road trip that Least Heat-Moon took throughout the United States in 1978 after he had lost his teaching job and been separated from his first wife. He tells how he traveled 13,000 miles, as much as possible on secondary roads (which he points out were often drawn on maps in blue, especially in the old-style Rand McNally road atlas), and tried to avoid cities. Living out of his van, he visited small towns such as Nameless, Tennessee; Hachita, New Mexico; and Bagley, Minnesota, to find places in America untouched by fast food chains and interstate highways. The book records memorable encounters in roadside cafés, as well as his search for something greater than himself. This memoir was highly popular, making the New York Times bestseller list in 1982–83 for 42 weeks.

PrairyErth is a deep map account of the history and people of Chase County, Kansas.

River-Horse is Least Heat-Moon's account of a four-month coast-to-coast boat trip across the U.S. in which he traveled almost exclusively on the nation's waterways from the Atlantic to the Pacific. During this nearly 5,000-mile journey, he followed documented routes recorded by early explorers such as Henry Hudson and the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Columbus in the Americas (2002) is a brief history of Christopher Columbus's journeys.

Roads to Quoz (2008) is another "road book." This covers "not one long road trip, but a series of shorter ones" taken over the years between books. Robert Sullivan of the New York Times Book Review commented that Least Heat-Moon celebrates "serendipity and joyous disorder."

Here, There, Elsewhere (2013) is a collection of Least Heat-Moon's best short-form travel writing.

He edited An Osage Journey to Europe 1827-1830 (2013), which contains the accounts of six Osage people who traveled to Europe in 1827, accompanied by three Americans. Least Heat-Moon and James K. Wallace translated these works into English.

Writing 'Blue Highways' (2014) is an account of how Least Heat-Moon wrote his best-selling book Blue Highways. In reflecting on the journey, he also discusses writing, publishing, personal relationships, and many other aspects that went into writing the book. It won an award for Distinguished Literary Achievement, Missouri Humanities Council, 2015.

Celestial Mechanics: A Tale for a Mid-Winter Night (2017) is William Least Heat-Moon's debut novel.