Greg Kleiner

Greg Kleiner’s first novel, Where River Turns To Sky, is the story of an eighty-year-old man who promises his lifelong friend, now confined to a nursing home, that he will not die alone. He visits every day for two years until the one weekend when he escapes to go fly-fishing. The friend dies while he’s gone. Vowing to allow no other person to die alone, he buys a rundown mansion in the Oregon town of Lookingglass and paints the house a shocking red lipstick colorl. He then invites a handful of elders move in with him. The book shows that death is not necessarily an end, rather a lesson in living.

The Chicago Tribune called Gregg’s novel, "a lovingly told story of aging, the betrayal of our bodies and minds, and death….you’ll leave this book with a deeper understanding of what it’s like to be old and how quickly human contact can redeem the loneliest among us."

Where River Turns to Sky was a finalist for both the 1997 Paterson Fiction prize and the 1997 Oregon Book Award.

Gregg is a third-generation Oregonian, a graduate of the University of Oregon with degrees in Journalism and German literature. At age 16, he spent a year as an American Foreign Exchange Student in the mountains of northern Thailand. For a month of that year, he lived at a Buddhist monastery as a novice under the tutelage of an aged monk. He’s worked as a dairy goat farmer, hotel concierge in Switzerland, freelance journalist, wildlife biologist, carpenter, and technical writer. He makes his living now writing and teaching. Gregg lives in Corvallis, with his wife, Lori, and two small children, Eli and Sophia.