Biography

Craig Childs is a writer who focuses on the relationship between humans and the landscape, often told from mind-blowing journeys in the wilderness. He is a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Men's Journal, Outside and Orion. His subjects range from pre-Columbian archaeology to US border issues to the last free-flowing rivers of Tibet and Patagonia. He has published more than a dozen books, including, The Secret Knowledge of Water, House of Rain, and Animal Dialogues. His new book, Finders Keepers, appears in August 2010.

The expeditions Childs undertake often last weeks or months, informing his writing with a hard-earned sense of landscape and culture. The New York Times says "Childs's feats of asceticism are nothing if not awe inspiring: he's a modern-day desert father." He has been called a "born storyteller" by the New York Sun, and the LA Times says his writing is "like pure oxygen," and "stings like a slap in the face." He has won several key awards including the 2009 Rowell Art of Adventure Award, the 2007 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award and the 2003 Spirit of the West Award for his body of work, an honor he shares with Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams and N. Scott Momaday.