RICK BASS, from Missoula Montana, is the author, most recently of All the Land to Hold Us. He has written more than 30 books of fiction and non-fiction, and is recognized also for his activism for the environment. Howard Frank Mosher says of him, "Rick Bass is one of a dwindling handful of American writers still celebrating the importance of place, the natural world, and the struggle of a few brave souls to live and work respectfully in what's left of our western wilderness." Bass's work, often grounded in the natural world, is widely anthologized. His awards include O. Henry Awards, numerous Pushcart Prizes, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and a Pen/Nelson Algren Special Citation, which was judged by Robert Penn Warren. Several of his books have been named New York Times and Los Angeles Times Notable Books of the Year, and a New York Times Best Book of the Year. His most recent nonfiction book, Why I Came West, was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. 

JANE BROX's fourth book, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, was named one of the top ten nonfiction books of 2010 by Time magazine. Living in Maine, she is the author of three other books: Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm; Five Thousand Days Like This One, which was a 1999 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction; and Here and Nowhere Else, which won the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award. She has received the New England Book Award for nonfiction, and her essays have appeared in many anthologies including Best American Essays, The Norton Book of Nature Writing, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. She has been awarded grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Maine Arts Commission.