Ray St. Louis – Biography
I was born in 1949, which makes me a baby boomer and a product of the sixties and
seventies. I dropped out of college in 1970 when the student body of my school, the
University of Minnesota, went on strike along with numerous other colleges and
universities across the nation to protest the invasion of Cambodia, an escalation of the
Vietnam War, and the killings of four student protesters at Kent State University.
Rather than go back to classes when the strike ended, I became a full time anti-war and
anti-draft activist. My path then took me to political theater, and later to masks and
sculpture. I worked with a couple of theater companies in Minneapolis during these
years - acting, directing, writing scripts, and building masks. In 1977, I started
performing at Renaissance theme fairs as a puppeteer and stilt walker. Over the next
several years my performing troupes and I worked the Renaissance festival circuit,
performing at fairs all over the eastern half of the United States. One of those troupes,
the Sticks and Stones Stilt Dancers, later became the model for the Stone Soup
Performing Company featured in my novel, The Road Dog Diary. More on that
below. In 1984 I built a dragon swing, which I started operating as a man-powered ride
at these fairs. Over the next few years the ride business grew as the performing aspect
of my festival involvement waned. By the start of the nineties, my festival involvement
was entirely rides. My business, Flying Dragon Attractions, now operates at seven
festivals in five states. We specialize in human and gravity powered rides: swings,
slides, and carousels.
Since 1994 I have been a columnist specializing in political and social commentary for
the North Florida Herald, formerly High Springs Herald, and other Florida
newspapers. I have won a number of state journalism awards in both the serious and
humorous column categories (I like to call myself a “sometimes humorous” newspaper
columnist). The Road Dog Diary is my first work of fiction. The characters and events
of the story draw heavily on my experiences from three decades of participation on the
Renaissance festival circuit. I believe I’ve written the first insider’s account of life
within the world of the Rennies, as the subculture of itinerant Renaissance festival
participants call themselves. I have also authored a children's book, The Worm Wagon,
published by Booklocker. Currently, I am working on another novel as well as other
children's stories. My columns continue to appear regularly in the North Florida
Herald.