Letters to Kody : Postcards from Coffeeshops

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Letters to Kody is dedicated to all those who have wandered, all those who wish to wander, and to the loved ones we’ve lost along the way.

Several years ago, a young man’s car collided with a fire truck in Kentucky. His name was Kody. He dreamed of seeing the world beyond the beauty of Kentucky, but had barely glimpsed it when he lost his life on his way to work at Walmart, aged twenty-three. For years beforehand, Kody had keenly followed my travel dispatches from around the world, sharing questions and comments. Now, through Letters to Kody, I’m taking him with me around the world — on the road, in the present, and through anecdotes from past travels. Every episode dedicated to Kody honours his spirit of adventure and curiosity.

I’m author D. J. Swales. As a child, I gripped my teenage mum’s hand on a stormy ferry to Liverpool, fleeing the violence of conflict-torn Belfast. I haven’t stopped travelling since. I’ve been drifting in the wake of my grandfather — an old Irish sea-dog who circled the world a dozen times before being knocked into the hold of a ship in Hamburg. Since fleeing the bullets and bombs of Belfast, I’ve called twelve countries and three US states home, explored 120 countries and forty-five US states, and I’m still counting.

These are memoir-letters from my tumbleweed life. Winding, personal, and wide-ranging, they move between nature, folklore, history, humour, grief, wonder, and the extraordinary ordinary moments that make life on the road worth living — and worth sharing.

By listening, you speak Kody’s name. You help carry his spirit somewhere new.

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