Leveraging decades of teaching and public speaking experience, Tim Bennett shares his personal hiking journey and the history of long-distance hiking trails to local and national audiences. He looks forward to where the trail will lead him next.
Tim Bennett Author Presentations
Out of the Woods and Into the Forest
PowerPoint Presentation (50 minutes): In July of 2022, I began an end-to-end hike of the Long Trail to honor my father’s legacy. In 1937, he backpacked the Long Trail to celebrate his high school graduation. Armed with his trail diary and guidebook, I planned to retrace his steps and compare our journeys. But the Universe seemed to have other ideas. My plan was interrupted when I was struck by a car at a road crossing. After a year of recovery, I was able to return to the LT, but the universe intervened once again. This is a tale of hubris, trauma, recovery, self-doubt, perseverance, legacy, and triumph on Vermont’s Long Trail.
Appalachian Tales
Upon stepping out of the woods, a thru-hiker encounters a peculiar sight in the empty trailhead parking lot: a pair of Hoka hiking shoes laced up and pointing north. What if the Hokas could talk? What stories might be hidden in the soles and laces? This collection of true stories from the Appalachian Trail and Vermont’s Long Trail explores the random thoughts and observations that keep a hiker’s mind occupied as they continue to put one foot in front of the other for hours on end.
The interactive format of this presentation encourages the audience to select from a menu of short story titles, each linked to photos that illustrate an ad-libbed tale, or feature a reading from the forthcoming trail memoir: One Mountain After Another.
Stories include bear encounters, rainbow dance parties, gnomes, unexpected reunions, connections with the past, mysterious mountains, and the all-important question of just how far a thru-hiker will venture off trail in search of good pizza.
Flexible PowerPoint presentation (30-60 minutes) that can be adjusted based on the number of tales used. Stories include:
- If Hokas Could Talk
- Spooky Glastenbury
- Garden Gnomes
- Stairway to Nowhere
- Pizza Envy
- Kitchen Table Conversations
- Fin del Viaje
- Sometimes You Eat the Bear
- What are the Odds?
- Rainbow Dance Party
Forests of Northern Appalachia as Muse
Forests once blanketed the landscape of Northern Appalachia. Despite centuries of exploitation, significant remnants of these once-vast forests still persist in the region: Allegheny National Forest, Monongahela National Forest, Dolly Sods, Cook Forest, Tiadaghton, and others.
Let’s explore these resilient forests through a series of breathtaking photographs to find inspiration for writing. Along the way, we’ll discuss how forest immersion helps us stay grounded, sharpens focus, fills us with wonder and awe, connects us to a larger community, and sparks creative ideas.
If trees could talk, what stories might they tell? Whether they serve as setting, character, or witness, incorporating forests in our work lends them a voice and champions their preservation.
Download a PDF version of the one sheet.
A new presentation coming soon: AT Barstool Debates