Charles Hood teaches literature and writing at Antelope Valley College and has published nearly two hundred poems, stories, book reviews, and essays. His awards include a Fulbright scholarship in ethnopoetics as well as recognition for his photography and collages. Actively interested in the nature of the neotropics, he researched this book during four trips to Costa Rica, with additional fieldwork in Mexico, Belize, Panama, and the Amazon. This is his third book.