Saturday January 24, 2026, 2:00 pm
Library of Florida History, 435 Brevard Ave., Cocoa, FL 32922
Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road, The Dharma Bums, and Desolation Angels, is known around the world as the Beat Generation icon who wrote novels and poetry that changed literature forever.
What is lesser known is that Kerouac was liv-ing in Orlando when his seminal novel On the Road was published. He was at his most productive at his house on Clouser Street. Kerouac also spent his final years in Florida, in St. Petersburg.
Author Bob Kealing tells the story of how the house on Clouser Street was saved from being bulldozed and became the “Kerouac Writer’s Residence,” which today is a haven for authors of all genres to create new work. The authors live rent free and work in the same house where Kerouac lived in the back room, and where some of his greatest works were written over half a century ago.
Bob Kealing is the author of six critically acclaimed books about Florida history and culture. He has founded four Florida Heritage sites, and was instrumental in the development of the Kerouac House in Orlando as the home of an active writers-in-residence program. Bob Kealing is a two-time Edward R. Murrow Award and six-time Emmy Award winning television reporter in Central Florida.