Ronald Schulz

Born 1952 in Chicago, Ronald grew up in the semi-rural suburbs. At fifteen he ran away to New Orleans, where he lived on Skid Row until betrayed by a priest. As a disaffected seventeen-year-old high school dropout in 1969, Ronald took LSD while hitchhiking into the western American counterculture. He also became involved in radical movements in New York and Chicago, including the SDS Days of Rage. Arrested and subjected to several months in a mental hospital, he made the most of it, later joining a Wisconsin commune, which remained his home throughout the 1970s. In 1975 he hitchhiked across North Africa and the Middle East, spent time on a kibbutz, and worked at a copper mine in Israel’s Negev desert. Then on to India and Nepal, where he spent nine months studying Buddhism under Lama Yeshe. His life has been full of adventure, travel, and different jobs, including teaching English classes in Tokyo, construction work in Los Angeles, and mining in South Dakota and Colorado. Ronald has a BA in political science from the University of Washington, as well as certificates in memoir writing and teaching English as a second language. He has been to every continent and lives in Seattle, writing a series of honest memoirs: Chicago Rage, Home at the Edge, Spirit Quest 1969, and Party at the Edge of the Rainbow. Teenage Runaway is coming out soon, with more to follow.