Charles Hood is a naturalist, adventurer, and poet. He has also been a factory worker, a ski instructor, a dishwasher, and a nature guide in Africa. Nature study has taken him to all fifty US states, eighty countries, and the South Pole. Along the way he has been lost in a whiteout in Tibet, contracted and survived bubonic plague, and published 20 books and over 800 photographs. His essay collection A Salad Only the Devil Would Eat was named the Nonfiction Book of the Year by the editors of Foreword book review. He lives in the Mojave Desert with two kayaks, two mountain bikes, two dogs, and 5,000 books.