Based in Copenhagen, Lisa Abend is a correspondent for Time magazine and a contributing writer for AFAR. She is also the author of The Sorcerer’s Apprentices: A Season in the Kitchen of Ferran Adrià’s elBulli.
Scott Anderson is a veteran war correspondent, a novelist, and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. “Lawrence’s Arabia,” his first piece for Smithsonian magazine, was inspired by the five years he spent researching and writing his international bestseller, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. “After poring so long over historical documents in archives,” Anderson says, “I was anxious to visit—or in some cases revisit—those places in the Middle East that played a key role in T. E. Lawrence’s story. It was fascinating to see the physical disparity, with some places all but unrecognizable from a century ago while others have barely changed at all.” On a more political level, Anderson discovered a dispiriting change. “There have always been two camps in the Arab world in regard to the Lawrence legend, those who believe he truly did try to help the Arabs gain their independence in World War I, and those who believe he was a scheming agent for British imperialism all along. It’s a measure of how deeply the West is distrusted throughout the Middle East today—a distrust amply earned—that the latter view is now almost universally held.”
Kevin Baker is the author of five novels, most recently The Big Crowd (2013), set mainly in postwar New York and based closely on the greatest unsolved murder in Mob history. He is also the author or coauthor of a contemporary novel, a graphic novel, two works of American history, and an as-told-to memoir by Reggie Jackson, Becoming Mr. October. Baker is a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine and a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and has written for many other newspapers and magazines. He is a member of the executive board of the Society of American Historians and lives in New York City.
Along with two books of travel essays, Guatemalan Journey and Green Dreams: Travels in Central America, Stephen Connely Benz has published essays in Creative Nonfiction, River Teeth, TriQuarterly, and other journals. One of his essays appeared in The Best American Travel Writing 2003. He teaches professional writing at the University of New Mexico and leads workshops in travel writing at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference.
Benjamin Busch is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer. He served 16 years as an infantry and light armored reconnaissance officer in the United States Marine Corps, deploying to Iraq in 2003 and again in 2005. As an actor he is best known for his portrayal of Officer Colicchio in the HBO series The Wire. He is the author of a memoir, Dust to Dust (2012), and his essays have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and NPR’s All Things Considered. His poetry has appeared in North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Five Points, The Florida Review, Oberon, and Michigan Quarterly Review, among others.
Madeline Drexler is an award-winning journalist, author, and travel essayist. She is editor of Harvard Public Health magazine and a senior fellow at Brandeis University’s Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism. Drexler’s articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Nation, Tricycle, and many other national publications. Her book Emerging Epidemics: The Menace of New Infections (2010) drew wide praise. Drexler began her career as a staff photographer for the Associated Press. She is currently working on a new series of essays based on a return reporting trip to Bhutan.
David Farley is the author of An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town, which most recently became a documentary by the National Geographic Channel. He’s a contributing writer at AFAR and also writes regularly for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Bon Appétit, among other publications. Farley teaches writing at New York University. Find him online at www.dfarley.com.
Lauren Groff is the author of the novels Fates and Furies, Arcadia, and The Monsters of Templeton and the short story collection Delicate Edible Birds. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Magazine, as well as in three editions of the Best American Short Stories anthology and 100 Years of The Best American Short Stories. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.
In 1996, Peter Hessler arrived in China as a teacher with the Peace Corps, and he stayed on for more than a decade, writing a trilogy of nonfiction books about the country: River Town, Oracle Bones, and Country Driving. He is also the author of Strange Stones, a collection of his articles. He currently lives with his wife and twin daughters in Cairo, where he is working on a book about post-revolution Egypt.
Rachael Maddux is a writer and editor whose essays and features have appeared in Oxford American, The Believer, Guernica, and elsewhere. She was raised in Tennessee and lives in Atlanta.
Patricia Marx is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her latest book is Let’s Be Less Stupid: An Attempt to Maintain My Mental Faculties (2015). She overpacks for everything, including once for jury duty.
Tim Neville is a correspondent for Outside, Ski, and Skiing magazines and a frequent contributor to the New York Times travel section. His work has also appeared in The Best American Sports Writing. He lives in Oregon with his wife and daughter. Follow him @tim_neville.
Maud Newton is a writer and critic whose work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Narrative, Oxford American, Granta, Bookforum, The Awl, and many other publications. She received the 2009 Narrative Prize and is writing a book about the science and superstition of ancestry.
Adriana Páramo is a cultural anthropologist, writer, and women’s rights advocate. Her book Looking for Esperanza (2012), winner of Benu Press’s 2011 Social Justice and Equity Award in Creative Nonfiction, was named one of the top 10 best books by Latino authors in 2012 by thelatinoauthor.com and the Best Women’s Issues Book at the 2013 International Latino Book Awards, and was also an award winner at the 2012 Book of the Year Awards. She is the author of My Mother’s Funeral, a work of nonfiction set in Colombia. Páramo’s work has won numerous awards and honors, including multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, and it has been noted in The Best American Essays of 2012, 2013, and 2014. She has been named one of the top 10 Latino authors in the USA by LatinoStories.com. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, The Georgia Review, Southern Sin, Brevity, The Fourth Genre, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Going Om, and others. She keeps a travel blog: www.paramoadriana.com/travel-blog.
Nick Paumgarten is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He lives in New York City. Raised in Australia and a denizen of the East Village of Manhattan for many years, Tony Perrottet is a contributing writer at Smithsonian and a regular at the New York Times, WSJ Magazine, and other publications. He is the author of five books, most recently Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped and The Sinner’s Grand Tour: A Journey Through the Historical Underbelly of Europe. He is currently working on a book about adventurers in 1930s China. This is his sixth appearance in the Best American Travel Writing series.
Lauren Quinn is a writer and teacher currently living in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in The Believer, Guernica, The Guardian, and Hazlitt, among others.
Monte Reel is the author of the books Between Man and Beast and The Last of the Tribe. His essays and articles have appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Outside, Businessweek, and The Believer, among others. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.
Paul Salopek is a freelance journalist who has reported on conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Balkans, and Latin America. His work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic, the Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, American Scholar, The Best American Travel Writing, and other publications. His reportage has earned two Pulitzer Prizes. He is currently walking across the world as part of a seven-year narrative project called the Out of Eden Walk; see www.outofedenwalk.com.
Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His debut novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His second novel, Absurdistan, was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, as well as a best book of the year by Time, Washington Post Book World, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and many other publications. He has been selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, and Travel + Leisure, and his books have been translated into more than 20 languages. He lives in New York City. His most recent work is the memoir Little Failure.
Iris Smyles’s stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, the New York Times, the New York Observer, BOMB, and other publications. She has written two books of fiction: Iris Has Free Time and the forthcoming Dating Tips for the Unemployed. She lives in New York and Greece. Visit her online at IrisSmyles.com.
Christopher Solomon writes about travel, outdoor pursuits, science, and the environment for the New York Times, Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and other publications. He is a contributing editor at both Outside and Runner’s World. This is his second appearance in The Best American Travel Writing. His work also appeared in The Best American Sports Writing 2014. A former reporter for the Seattle Times, Solomon lives in Seattle. Find more of his work at chrissolomon.net.
Patrick Symmes writes: “I am a correspondent and travel writer for national magazines and the author of two books on the Cuban Revolution, Chasing Che (2000) and The Boys from Dolores (2007). The latter made the New York Times Ten Best Books list for 2007. I have been a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, Outside, and Condé Nast Traveler, and after more than 20 years of writing about the remote regions of the world and the ragged edges of geopolitics, I am surprised to find that I crave even more.”
Paul Theroux is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and Cape Cod.