Born in Milwaukee and educated in Boston, Theodore P. Druch went on to augment a Master’s Degree in Near Eastern Studies with a “higher” degree at Timothy Leary’s LSD commune at Millbrook, NY. After his graduation from the Psychedelic Academy, he went on to become a general contractor in San Francisco, mostly remodeling old Victorians. Their houses anyway.
At the age of fifty-eight, he and his partner, Maria Ruiz, chucked it all and ran away from home to see the world. They spent ten years traveling to fifty-two countries and living in several for extended periods. They spent the next six years in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he rekindled an old love of writing. He was an active member of the Puerto Vallarta Writer’s Group, and he and Maria conducted a weekly workshop for serious authors. He was organizer and chairman for the Seventh Annual PVWG International Writers Conference in February, 2012.
While in Puerto Vallarta, Druch wrote and self-published four full-length books. Footsteps on a Small Planet is an account of their travels around Mexico and Central America by motorhome. Timothy Leary and the Mad Men of Millbrook recounts his experiences living in the notorious psychedelic commune for the last years of its existence. African Odyssey details an impromptu trip through central Africa that he and Maria were forced to take before they could legally return to their home in Nairobi, a short weekend jaunt that lasted for a month. The Reaper’s Carol is a graphic account of his six-month struggle with a life threatening illness that nearly put an end to his writing for good. He also edited Coast Lines, three anthologies of the writings of the members of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group.
He and Maria, also a prolific writer, are currently living in Sacramento, California.