Book Project Announcement and a Major Ask of my Readers.

Something I thought I would never do has been made manifest in a big opportunity.

My wife Jenna and myself about 200km north of Fort McMurray, AB, 2012/2013

Greetings and salutations to readers of Autonomous Truck(er)s and listeners of the Voice Of GO(r)D podcast, and if I haven’t said it already, Happy New Year.

I’ve got a fairly major announcement to make, and I want to thank all of you for helping make it happen, and ask of you a favor, if you can spare it.

But first.

My proclivity towards reading and being an opinionated bastard goes back a long way in my life; in a report card issued by my grade seven teacher, Madame Turner, she remarked that while she appreciated my fairly advanced vocabulary for a 13 year old, the fact that I ignored her lessons and spent most of the class reading books I had brought in myself was a distraction for the other students. As I progressed through high school, however, which I barely finished due to working 3 jobs and 50-60 hours a week for most of grade eleven and twelve, my academic achievement suffered greatly.

High School Grad, June 1997

I still made time to read books and most of the daily newspapers (remember the time before the Internet?), and could oft be counted on to express my opinion, whether it was asked for or not.

As life went on, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and Friends all encouraged me to journal, over and above their calls for me to pursue a post secondary education. They were calls I ignored not so much because I was stubborn and felt a different call, the call to adventure that was presented to me by trucking, but also because I couldn’t bear the thought of taking out student loans, amongst other reasons. My dear Aunty Kate, in particular, never stopped hectoring me to write, nor did my cousins Jennifer or Samantha. All three of them are readers of this Substack, so I suppose a several decade delay in taking up their suggestion is one still acknowledged.


My little project here at Substack is now over two years old, and I have managed to acquire over 3000 subscribers, as well as having found myself published in the pages of Newsweek, The American Conservative, Compact, UnHerd, American Compass, IM_1776, American Affairs Journal, The Blaze Media, and been interviewed for other outlets such as Overdrive Magazine. The Voice Of GO(r)D podcast, though it hasn’t made me a dime, now has over 2000 downloads for certain episodes, and is a favorite amongst some of the finest truckers on the road.


And now a new opportunity has presented itself, care of an email I received a little while back, from a new press, or book publisher if you will, that is so new that they don't even have a website up yet. They are called Creed & Culture Books, and its founders are Byron Smith, a Nashville-based businessman and philanthropist, and Jeremy Beer, a cofounder of the wonderful online magazine Front Porch Republic.

Creed & Culture is looking to publish works exploring under discussed, and undiscussed, ideas and issues facing America today, amongst other areas and subjects.

Byron and Jeremy have approached me to write a book based on the body of my published work, centered on trucking, its culture, and the various issues facing the industry today. The book will start with a question many asked about the organizing and driving force behind Canada's Freedom Convoy: Why Truckers?

It is my contention that the answer to this question isn't as simple as “Duh, the vaccine mandates.” No, the reason that it was truckers who organized one of the most successful populist uprisings in the modern era is because truckers have been subject to a silent war that has been going on for over four decades now, on multiple fronts. Creed & Culture wants me to weave a narrative arc to explain the answer to Why Truckers?, an answer that includes my own three decades of experience in the business, which has taken me all across Canada, including four seasons on the Ice Roads, the lower 48 United States, pulling Road Trains across the Outback of Western Australia, and logs through the forests of New Zealand. In my lifetime, I have personally witnessed how trucking is done differently outside of America, and how various policies and worldwide trends have driven the business into penury and quagmire in 2025. We have all seen the videos and photos of collisions and accidents, been stuck in the traffic backups, or know someone in the industry who has been laid off or otherwise suffered financially at the hands of companies who expect drivers to work for wages that are half of what they were in 1980.

We are also looking at a future where automated, driverless trucks are just over the horizon. What of the trucker then?

A quick look around the worlds of books and media in 2025 shows that truckers are not exactly well represented; I hope to change that.

The tentative working title of the book is End of The Road, with a subtitle/sub lead yet to be decided on.

Creed & Culture, as a startup, does not have boatloads of money, and they are only able to offer me a small advance. Don’t get me wrong—the advance is a great expression of interest and confidence in me and my writing. But it is not enough to sustain me over several months of making sure the modern story of trucking is told properly and with sufficient detail that a wider audience can be made to understand what has happened to it.

This is where you come in.

With your generous donations, I will be able to take the necessary time away from work to do right by my fellow truckers and anyone who reads this book. I want to make my arguments and stories clear and in the best presentation that I can, and make it so good that many people want to read it, including the policymakers in government who would be in a position to effect the necessary changes to course-correct our extremely important industry. And why wouldn’t they? I’ve submitted a letter to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee at the request of Thomas Massie, and likewise had an essay on the real nature of being an essential worker included in a collection which landed on the desks of every member of Congress.


I don’t ask for your contributions to this project lightly; I know that economic times are tough for those readers that, like myself, are grinding it out in the working class. This is also possibly the worst time of the year for people’s finances, after the understandable expenditures of the Christmas and Hanukkah season.

That said, if you do have a couple of bucks to spare, it would really help me out in that I will be able to concentrate on the book, rather than hustling at various part time jobs I have. Once the book is finished I’d like to return to the road, and by God my poor suffering wife Jenna would much prefer the consistency. Your help will get me over that finish line.

I’ve set up a GiveSendGo, and will share the link below, as well as an Interac E-mail transfer address for those living in Canada. Every dollar counts, and perhaps you can think of it this way - even if not for the book project, my Substack has nearly 3100 subscribers now, and only 27 of you chip in with a paid subscription. If you are feeling guilty about this, and want to contribute a couple of bucks instead of paying for a yearly subscription here, now is your chance.

Every dollar counts, and I also want to return some value to you, so am thus offering the following tiers of value to donors -

$40 - Free audiobook or E-reader version

$100 - Hardcover Copy signed by me

$250 - Your name mentioned in the credits of the book, along with a signed Hardcover Copy

$500 + and whenever I get back on the road you can come trucking with me

If 200 of you gave $100, that’s twenty grand, which will keep the wolves away from the door for a few months, and allow me to work on the book full time.

The book is set to publish in February 2026, and the manuscript is due in July 2025. I’m already at work on it, and with your help, I can see it through and make it so good that it might sell quite a few copies, and perhaps effect some change for the people who make your modern lifestyle possible, and maybe make our roads a safer place to be. It will also tell a pretty good story.

GiveSendGo Link for those in the USA or overseas.

Those living in Canada can donate via Interac Email Transfer to - detroit430@yahoo.com

If you are real old school and want to send a cheque or other paper based financial instrument, send me an email, and I’ll give you a postal address -
gordilocks@protonmail.com

For those of you who are in academia, or maybe know something about the world of grants, or are maybe connected to the vast network of NGOs, Foundations, and Non-Profits who seem hell bent on making a mockery of local sovereignty while they launder money for corporations and billionaires, perhaps you know of a channel by which they can filter that filthy lucre to me for something good and positive instead.

Please let me know if you have any suggestions.


Again, thanks so much if you can help out, and even if you can’t, I appreciate your readership and the time you give by being here in the first place.


Gord