County Highway

County Highway is a 20-page broadsheet produced by actual human beings, containing the best new writing you will encounter about America. It features reports on the political and spiritual crises that are gripping our country and their deeper cultural and historical sources; regular columns about agriculture, civil liberties, animals, herbal medicine, and living off the grid, mentally and physically; essays about literature and art, and an entire section devoted to music.

In an age where newspapers are no longer available, this newspaper comes out six times a year and is delivered to your home in a transparent envelope. This talk will explain how this newspaper has been successful when others have failed.

County Highway is honoring the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by gathering tributes from a raft of some of America’s finest essayists, humorists, fiction writers, and other prose stylists. 250 Great American Things (Hard Cider Press, 2026) was published in July. Co-editors David Samuels, Ryan Baesemann and various writers will read from their tributes to America.

Founding editors are David Samuels and Walter Kirn are presenting. Walter Kirn is a fiction writer, essayist, critic, and editor-at-large of County Highway. His novels include Up in the Air and Thumbsucker, both of which were made into major feature films. (Up in the Air (2001) was adapted into a 2009 film starring George Clooney and earned six Academy Award nominations.) His essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, and countless other publications.