Dan White is the author of The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail (Harper Collins), an NCIBA bestseller and Los Angeles Times “Discovery” selection, and Under The Stars: How America Fell In Love With Camping (Henry Holt & Co.), which Cheryl Strayed described as “the definitive book on camping in America.” His writing has been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Outside, Poets & Writers, Catamaran literary magazine and the Washington Post. He has an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University, where he was a Dean’s Fellow and taught in the Undergraduate Writing Program. Dan was a Steinbeck Fellow at the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. He has taught writing at Columbia University and San Jose State. Before pursuing his MFA, he worked as the city reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Charles Hood grew up in Atwater beside the Los Angeles River. He has been a bird guide in Africa, a translator in New Guinea, and a National Science Foundation Artist-in-Residence in Antarctica. He is the author of many books and essays including A Californian’s Guide to the Birds among Us. Charles has received numerous fellowships and writing awards, and his most recent artist-in-residence positions were with the National Science Foundation in Antarctica and with Playa Arts in Oregon. He has also been a visiting professor in England, Mexico, and Papua New Guinea. Hood is currently a research fellow with the Center for Art and Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art as well as a teacher of writing and photography at Antelope Valley College in the Mojave Desert.