Chris Epting

Chris Epting is the author of 40 travel/history books, including James Dean Died Here (Santa Monica Press), Roadside Baseball (McGraw Hill), Hello It's Me, Dispatches From a Pop Culture Junkie (Santa Monica Press) and many others. He is also an award-winning travel writer and has contributed articles for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Westways and Travel + Leisure magazine, among other publications. In addition, Chris is a memoirist and has co-written Def Leppard's Phil Collen's memoir, Adrenalized, the John Oates Memoir Change of Seasons, and Long Train Runnin’ with the Doobie Brothers among many others. Originally from New York, Chris now lives in Southern California.

Chris started out at an advertising agency on Madison Avenue where he wrote commercials and ad campaigns. He soon became creative director at a number of Los Angeles advertising agencies. He won lots of awards for these but felt something was missing. There were books he wanted to write and stories he wanted to tell and the confines of the advertising industry was just not going to allow that.

So he made a change. He started writing books about the things he loves; travel, music, baseball and popular culture. For about 10 years he had a weekly column in the Los Angeles Times and wrote for the Huffington Post for about six years. He appeared on many TV and radio shows. For about eight years he was the national spokesman for the wonderful and successful Hampton Hotel Save-A-Landmark program which allowed me to travel extensively throughout the country, telling stories and working to help preserve some of America’s true treasures.

Currently he is working on several book projects he is thrilled about, along with a couple of television projects that he is equally excited to get involved with. He also recently designed a writing course that is quite satisfying for him to teach.