ABOUT
I’m the author of two novels: Groundtruth (2025 Fireland Press); and The Road Builder (2001 Blue Hen/Penguin Putnam), which won the Western States Book Award for Fiction in 2002. Robert Olen Butler called that book “a novel that seamlessly and artfully blends a beautifully nuanced, character-driven story with a story of epic scope, one that resonates into the largest issues of our world.” This is also a good description of Groundtruth.
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I now live in central Washington state and work as a preschool teacher/outdoor educator. But for two decades very different jobs took me flying, driving, riding, walking, and bushwalking into urban mazes, rural backwaters, and the front and back country of Idaho, Honduras, and Ecuador. Those places and experiences inspired and inform the writing of Groundtruth. ​
IN THE PRESS
Reviews of The Road Builder
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"A warm and wise epic novel… brings together romance without sentimentality, social issues without preaching, and above all, a rare gift for storytelling and characterization."
BOOKPAGE.COM
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"A remarkable accomplishment, marrying politics and romance in the grand, epic tradition of Leo Tolstoy. Hershenow’s authority in presenting his flawed and endearing characters, not to mention the inarguable authenticity of place (physisal, psychological, spiritual) makes him a rare American writer in contemporary times… utterly engrossing."
ANTONYA NELSON,
JUDGE AND AUTHOR
WESTERN STATES BOOK REVEIW
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“Provides old-fashioned pleasures along with a modern sensibility . (Hershenow’s) character sketches are more than matched by his evocation of place.”
SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE
EVENTS
Methow Valley Arts Fair
Saturday, March 28th
2:30
Casia Lodge
Winthrop Library Reading
Mid-March