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Ken Kesey was an internationally renowned Oregonian novelist, essayist, and counterculture figure most famous for his book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and his psychedelic cross-country bus tour immortalized in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Ken Elton Kesey was born on September 17, 1935 in La Junta, Colorado. In 1946, his family moved to Springfield, Oregon where he graduated from Springfield High School. Kesey attended the University of Oregon where he studied journalism and communication and was a champion wrestler. He graduated from the University of Oregon in 1957. In 1956, while still a student, Kesey married Norma Faye Haxby. Together they had three children, Jed, Zane, and Shannon.

After graduating from the University of Oregon. Kesey was encouraged by his former literature professor, James B. Hall, to apply for a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship. This award enabled him to continue his education in creative writing. In 1958, Kesey enrolled at the Stanford University Creative Writing Center under the direction of Wallace Stegner. While at Stanford, Kesey formed friendships with fellow writers, most notably Ken Babbs who would participate in many of Kesey's creative projects, and would co-author his final novel Last Go Around.

During this time, Kesey also became part of the bohemian social milieu of Palo Alto's Perry Lane where, through Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell, he became aware of experiments with psychoactive drugs being conducted at the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park. Kesey became part of these experiments as a paid volunteer, and later became an employee of the hospital. Both experiences would have a profound impact on his art and writing, particularly the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Kesey published his first and most famous work One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962, and quickly followed it with another bestseller, Sometimes a Great Notion, in 1964. That year marked the beginning of a writing hiatus that would last until 1971. Instead of producing another novel, Kesey incorporated himself as Intrepid Trips, Inc. and purchased a 1939 International school bus, dubbed "Further." He and his artistic circle, first cultivated in Perry Lane and now settled at Kesey's home in La Honda, California, began the cross country road trip to the New York World's Fair that would become the basis for Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and cement Kesey's reputation as a counterculture icon. After Kesey and "his band of Merry Pranksters" returned to La Honda in 1965, they busied themselves by editing film footage of the bus trip, and organizing parties known as the Acid Tests. The Grateful Dead served as the house band for many of these gatherings.

In 1966, to escape a five-year prison sentence for possession of marijuana, Kesey faked his own death and fled to Mexico. After several weeks, when word of his whereabouts leaked to the press, Kesey was joined by his family and several Pranksters. Kesey's youngest daughter, Sunshine, was born to him and Merry Prankster Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Adams Garcia during this nine-month exile. Upon his return to the United States, Kesey was convicted of drug possession and spent six months in San Mateo County Jail and the San Mateo County Sherriff's Honor Camp. Upon his release in 1968, Kesey and his family moved back to Oregon, settling on a farm in Pleasant Hill near his childhood home of Springfield.

Kesey began writing again in 1971, coediting the Last Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalog with Paul Krassner. In 1973, Kesey published Kesey's Garage Sale, a collection of his works including the screenplay for Over the Border, a fictionalized account of his sojourn to Mexico. Kesey continued to publish short stories and essays for the next ten years, culminating in 1986's Demon Box, a collection of short fiction and non-fiction pieces, many of which had appeared in other publications including Kesey's own literary journal Spit In the Ocean. In 1989, Kesey published Caverns, his first novel since Sometimes a Great Notion, which was co-written with University of Oregon graduate students and published under the pseudonym O.U. Levon.

In the 1980s and 90s, Kesey continued to write, make public appearances, perform, and organize gatherings of Pranksters and fans in the spirit of the original "Further" bus trip and the Acid Tests. Kesey wrote two children's books, Little Tricker the Squirrel Meets Big Double the Bear and The Sea Lion, and published his screenplay The Further Inquiry and his final two novels, Sailor Song and Last Go Around during this time.

Kesey suffered a stroke in 1997, but recovered to perform as the Wizard of Oz in his play Twister: A Ritual Reality in Three Quarters Plus Overtime If Necessary. He died on November 10, 2001 after suffering postoperative complications from an attempt to remove a liver tumor. His Jail Journals, a psychedelically illustrated account of his time at the San Mateo County Sherriff's Honor Camp, were posthumously published in 2003.

Sources: Leeds, Barry H. "Biography: The Hallucinogenic Outlaw." In Ken Kesey, 1-12. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981. McClanahan, Ed. "Cut 'em Loose." In Kesey's Jail Journal, edited by David Stanford, ix-xiii. New York: Viking, 2003. Parker, Scott F. ed. Conversations with Ken Kesey. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014.