Writers to tell their ‘Print Journeys’

The Sycamore History Museum will present a special program  showcasing award-winning local authors who have made Sycamore their home – and the journeys each have made.

This program is free and is presented as part of the “Journey Stories” exhibit, which is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration, between the Smithsonian Institution and the Illinois Humanities Council.

Dirk Johnson is a nationally prominent journalist and author who spent 25 years covering America for The New York Times, Newsweek and the Chicago Sun-Times. Johnson is a five-time winner of The New York Times Publisher’s Award. He also has been honored as the top journalist by the Chicago Newspaper Guild.

Johnson’s journey started at Sycamore High School and led him to New York and Denver. He has covered some of the nation’s biggest stories, including the school shootings at Columbine, the fire deaths of the cult in Waco, Texas, the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the rescue of kidnap victim Jessica Smart in Utah. He also is the author of two books: “Biting The Dust: the Wild Ride and Dark Romance of Rodeo Cowboy and the American West,” and “Meth: the Home-Made Menace.”

Johnson chose to return to his native Sycamore to raise his children. He is a lecturer at Northern Illinois University and a senior advisor at APCO Worldwide, a strategic consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C.

G. K. Wuori started his journey as a writer at the DeKalb Daily Chronicle as a reporter. His journey took him around the country and through several occupations and eventually to Maine, the setting of much of his award-winning fiction. Wuori returned to writing in a series of short stories published in many nationally prominent magazines and in the published collection “Nude in Tub.”

His novel, “An American Outrage” was named ForeWord magazine’s book of the year in 2000. Wuori is a Pushcart Prize winner and recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship.

Wuori chose to return to Sycamore for family and to write. He continues to write and publish short stories and maintains his own Web site and blog at www.gkwuori.com.