NICK JANS is an award-winning writer, photographer, and author of numerous books, including The Grizzly Maze . He is a contributing editor to Alaska Magazine and has written for Rolling Stone , Backpacker , and the Christian Science Monitor .
Laurel Keith Lies is the only child of Sam Keith, author of the National Book Award winner One Man's Wilderness. Her favorite childhood memories revolve around her father and the countless nature walks they shared while exploring the conservation land behind their family home. According to Laurel, her father schooled her in two distinctively different classrooms. "Outdoors, Dad showed me how to appreciate and respect the wild by leaving only footprints. In his den library, he fostered in me a love for literature and language. Dad told me that good writers could paint with words and showed me how again and again."Laurel graduated with honors from Skidmore College with a degree in English… literature. In the mid-eighties, she pursued corporate communications and worked as promotions coordinator for a top Boston radio station before beginning a twenty-five year career in marketing and public relations. As a former vice president and firm partner at Schneider & Associates in Boston, Laurel created award-winning new product launches for a variety of popular consumer brands, including Pepperidge Farm, Edy's Ice Cream and the New England Confectionery Company (NECCO). Laurel is married to bestselling children's book author/illustrator Brian Lies and left her corporate career to focus on their greatest joint achievement, daughter, Madeline. Today, Laurel splits her time between book promotion and teaching third grade in her hometown of Duxbury, Massachusetts.