Michael Wallis Biography

Fast Facts

• Was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame, the Writers Hall of Fame of America and the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Fame, and was the first person inducted into the Oklahoma Route 66 Hall of Fame
• Received the John Steinbeck Award, the Will Rogers Spirit Award and the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall and Western Heritage Museum
• The Oklahoma Center for the Book honored him with the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award
• Graduated from Western Military Academy in 1963 and later attended the University of Missouri in Columbia
• Worked for the Caribbean Bureau of "Time" after moving to Miami, Fla․, in 1978
• Quote: "I have been relentless in my quest for tantalizing tales and by listening to wisdom keepers and sages and turning my own life into an adventure, I have acquired a rich collection․"
• Has written over a dozen books including "Route 66: The Mother Road․"
• Known as a journalist and popular historian of the Western United States
• In 1979, he traveled to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state to write about the everyday life of loggers who lived in the woods there
• If he moved to Los Angeles, he would want to live in the Chateau Marmont Hotel overlooking Sunset Boulevard