For the first four years of this project, I ate, slept, and breathed it; using every second of my life to find material for story. To learn tales, there was no limit to the places I’d go, the occupations I took on, or the characters I encountered. Though I've now built a private life and am building another career, my work as a writer and documentarian continues. I see myself as a storyteller, working in both the written and oral traditions. 

The contents of this website -- the blogs and the photos -- are the factual accounts of the lives I observe and the lands I travel. In short, this site is a notebook which I fill with the real life ingredients that form my fictional writings and performances.

"Landfair has a story to tell."
Cedric Golden

My myriad experiences include riding in tanks with the Marine Corps, working as a door-to-door salesman, walling a barn in Vermont, lifeguarding at country club swimming pools, gutting houses after Hurricane Katrina, writing for a California legal publication, working in a New York City kitchen, going underway in a nuclear submarine with the US Navy, living within an anarchist commune, surfing Hawaii's north shore, flying over the Alleghenies in a private plane, running two marathons, working a chainsaw on a timber ranch in the Pacific northwest...

"He's a throwback… so passionate about his craft he sold all his possessions to crisscross the nation and tell the stories of the people he encounters."
Tim McNiff

I was a twenty-one year-old creative writing student when I conceived the story outline that would lead me to research and write my first novel. Before that five year literary journey was over, I had crossed 48 states on a motorcycle -- working odd jobs to pay my way -- and had cultivated a storytelling act, which I brought to seventy cities.

I crafted my performance through a curriculum of self-study, enduring repeated failures at open mics before accumulating a streak of successes, and eventually headlining my own show. The perseverance and the work ethic I developed, as well as the vagrant lifestyle I adapted, remain a part of me.

"An amazing story."
Greg McQuade

48 Live, my fifty-five minute debut storytelling album, was recorded in front of a capacity crowd at the Barns opera house at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. The performance captures the adventure of my first fourteen months traveling across America.

"Influences like Jack Kerouac."
Alyssa Schafer

My first novel, Travelin’ On, tells the tale of a young showman struggling to differentiate the grandiose fabrications of his performances from the jumbled facts of his memory in order to establish and reclaim his identity. In a recollection that includes a mobster, a carnie, a war hero and a train-hopping runaway, the performer leads his audience across a continent of staggering aspirations and heartbreaking shortcomings, causing him to leap headlong into one final odyssey in search of the elusive truth.

"Many have heard their call, but Woodrow Landfair decided to answer."
Lori Holcomb

Life as an adventurer and a storyteller is not often easy. The struggles of writing and the ever varying circumstances of expeditions present me with challenges that demand every piece of who I am.

All my experiences serve as the apprenticeship for each new challenge.

I am having the time of my life.