Michael Finkel - Writing About the Last True Hermit and Other Adventurous Stories

Wild Ideas Worth Living

Michael’s Wild Idea: To write captivating stories about people who live on the fringes of society and do wild things.

Michael Finkel is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, which we dive deep into on today’s show. The story chronicles a highly intelligent man that lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years without lighting a single fire, or talking to a single soul.

An outdoors lover himself, who splits time between Montana and Southern France, Michael has a penchant for stories about those who live on the edges of society, and people who live with less. On assignment as a journalist for the likes of the New York Times and National Geographic, he’s skied off the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, set sail on a Haitian refugee boat, joined a cult in Colorado, been in a car that was run over by a tank in Afghanistan, and covered the last hunter-gatherer tribes. His previous book, True Story, was adapted into a 2015 major motion picture produced by Brad Pitt starring James Franco and Jonah Hill.

Listen to this episode if:

• You want to be a writer.
• You’ve ever thought of leaving it all behind to live alone in the woods.
• You enjoy hearing from amazing storytellers.
• You love stories of survival and those who can thrive with less.

For full show notes, including guest links and books mentioned during the episode, visit: http://wildideasworthliving.com/78