David Rains Wallace

Was born in Virginia and grew up in New England but has spent most of
his life in California. He published his first book, The Dark Range, about northwest California’s Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness, in 1978. In 1984, his third book, The Klamath Knot, received the John Burroughs Medal for Nature Writing and a Commonwealth Club Silver Medal for Literature. The book was later included in the San Francisco Chronicle’s list of the 20th century’s 100 best non-fiction books west of the Rockies. In 1991, Wallace Received a Fulbright Grant to write a history of the Costa Rican National Park System, published in 1992 as The Quetzal and the Macaw: in 1997, he published a natural history of Central America entitled The Monkey’s Bridge, which became a New York Times Book of the Year. A book about mammal evolution, Beasts of Eden, also was a Times Book of the Year in 2004. In 2012, his book about the California Desert, Chuckwalla Land, received a Commonwealth Club Gold Medal for Literature.

Wallace has also published many magazine and newspaper articles, and has taught or lectured at a number of colleges, including the University of California, the University of Ohio, the University of Oregon, Carleton College, and the University of Alaska. He lives in California with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Kendall.