CRAIG NELSON is the author of several previous books, including The First Heroes, Thomas Paine (winner of the 2007 Henry Adams Prize), and Let’s Get Lost (short-listed for W.H. Smith’s Book of the Year).

His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Salon, The New England Review, Reader’s Digest, The New York Observer, Popular Science, and a host of other publications; he has been profiled in Variety, Interview, Publishers Weekly, and Time Out.

Besides working at a zoo, in Hollywood, and being an Eagle Scout and a Fuller Brush Man, he was a vice president and executive editor of Harper & Row, Hyperion, and Random House, where he oversaw the publishing of twenty New York Times’ bestsellers.

He lives in Greenwich Village.

photo: Helvio Faria