Paul Perry attended Arizona State University and received a fellowship from the Freedom Forum Foundation at Columbia University in 1988. He taught magazine writing at the University of Oregon and was Executive Editor at American Health magazine. He is the co-author with Melvin Morse of Closer to the Light, Transformed by the Light, and Where God Lives, which won the 2002 Aleph Award for the best spiritual book published that year in France. His work has appeared in numerous publications including National Geographic Adventure, Ladies Home Journal, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, and Reader's Digest.