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Fred Wiehe is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1978, with a degree in Secondary Education. In 1979, with $500.00 in his pocket and one backpack stuffed with clothes, he hitch-hiked across country to California. Along the way, he made friends with the homeless (still referred to as hobos then), bikers, religious fanatics, farmers, migrant workers, truck drivers, hippies (yes, there were still hippies in '79), bus drivers, and Gypsies. He arrived in San Francisco three months later--basically broke but miraculously still alive--where he took up living quarters in the Ansonia Residence Club on Post Street, in the Tenderloin District. (The Ansonia is still there, but now it's a bed & breakfast and charges more for one night than it cost back then for a week. The Tenderloin is named for the young prostitutes on every corner.) He lived at the Ansonia for several months, sleeping to the sound of wailing sirens before moving to the much more quite streets around San Francisco State. Mr. Wiehe now lives in San Jose, with his wife Suzanne and sons Jesse and Ian. He is the author of Starkville, Night Songs, and The Burning. His newest novel Strange Days will be out in the Fall of 2005, just in time for Halloween.
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