Who is Tom Bodett?

One day David Fowler, a creative director from the Richards Group Advertising agency, was driving down the Dallas Parkway in his pickup truck listening to the public radio station his receiver had been stuck on for months. Suddenly a homey voiced monologue emerged from his dusty dashboard. He heard the name, Tom Bodett, and thought, "Gosh, if I only had an account for a national budget motel brand with a sense of humor and humility, I could make a heck of an advertising campaign with this guy." Enter Motel 6, and the rest, as they say, is history. Thirteen years of award winning advertising later, Tom is still speaking out of America's dusty dashboards and television screens about life as a road warrior, and the merits of Motel 6.

Tom lives with his wife and son where he keeps a home, a small boat, a cabin across the bay and a good dog. He also keeps a small studio where the homely voiced monologues of Motel 6 are still recorded.

In addition to bragging about Motel 6, Tom lends his voice to Steven Spielberg's "Animaniacs" series for Warner Brothers Animation and is the host of the PBS Television/Travel Channel co-production "Travels on America's Historic Trails with Tom Bodett."

Tom has published five books to date." As Far As You Can Go Without a Passport" and "Small" Comforts are collections of his commentary for National Public Radio published by Addison Wesley in Boston. "The End of the Road" and "The Big Garage on Clear Shot" published by William Morrow & Co. are the collected humorous monologues from his award-winning radio series "The End of the Road" which aired on over 160 stations from 1988-1990. "The Free Fall of Webster Cummings," Tom's first novel, was published by Hyperion in April of 1996.

All of Tom's published works have also been recorded for audio cassette and are available from Bantam Audio or Brilliance Corporation. For more information about Tom's published works, visit the official Tom Bodett web site at www.bodett.com.

Tom is currently working on a series of children's readers for Alfred A. Knopf. The first volume, Williwaw! was published in April of 1999.