In 2017, professional runner Rickey Gates ran 3,700 miles across the continental United States with just a small backpack and an anthropologist’s curiosity to discover the divided America in which we live. Magic City Books is proud to welcome Rickey Gates for a virtual author event to celebrate his book, Cross Country, which documents this epic experience from South Carolina to San Francisco, sharing first-person essays, interviews, and over 200 photographs of the ordinary and extraordinary people and places he saw along the way.

This free event will be hosted on the Zoom platform. To register in advance for the event visit here.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about attending the event on Tuesday, August 11 at 7:00 CDT.

Cross Country by Rickey Gates is available now at Magic City Books. You can purchase a copy in the store or online here.

About Cross Country

While Gates delivers unparalleled insight into the extreme athletic and mental challenge of this transcontinental run, running is not the core focus of Cross Country–it is a story of the remarkable people across the United States who we would otherwise never meet.- A photographic travelogue that follows along Rickey Gates’s run across the country, and the individuals who live in it. Filled with portraits, landscapes, and collages of towns and communities that most people have never seen.

Gates slept in the rain, carried meager possessions on his back, ran through the night, endured mental and physical challenges, and survived on a staple of gas station hot dogs and Pop Tarts. Delivering a patchwork portrait of America, Gates’s captivating story captures the spirit of our country–that grit, determination, and compassion are qualities that can unite us all.

Rickey Gates is a professional runner. He has run races on all seven continents and has traveled to nearly 40 countries. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Liz and a motorcycle dubbed the Freedom Machine.