Jason Wilson - The Best American Travel Writing 2013

Sam Anderson is the critic at large for the New York Times Magazine. His work has appeared in the Paris Review, New York magazine,Slate, the American Scholar, Creative Nonfiction, and The Best Technology Writing 2010. In 2007, he won the National Book Critics Circles Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing. He is currently working on a book about basketball, civics, and Oklahoma City.

Marie Arana was born in Peru and moved to the United States at the age of nine. She is the author of a memoir about her bicultural childhood, American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood, which was a finalist for the 2001 National Book Award and the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir, and which won the Books for a Better Life Award. She is the editor of a collection of Washington Post essays about the writers craft, The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work (2002), which is used as a textbook for writing courses in universities across the country. Her novel Cellophane, about the Peruvian Amazon, was published in 2006 and selected as a finalist for the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. Her most recent novel, published in January 2009, is Lima Nights. She has written the introductions for many books on Latin America, Hispanicity, and biculturalism. She was the scriptwriter for the South American portion of Girl Rising, a full-length feature film on education in pockets of poverty, which was released in March 2013. Her latest book is Bolvar: American Liberator, a biography of the South American liberator Simn Bolvar, published in April 2013. Arana has served on the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is the former editor of the Washington Posts Book World section, and her commentary has been published in the New York Times, USA Today, the International Herald Tribune, The Week, Civilization, Smithsonian, National Geographic, the Virginia Quarterly Review, El Comercio, El Pas, and numerous other publications throughout the Americas.

Bernd Brunner is the author of The Art of Lying Down: A Guide to Horizontal Living, Bears: A Brief History, Moon: A Brief History, Inventing the Christmas Tree, and The Ocean at Home: An Illustrated History of the Aquarium. His books have been translated into several languages, and his writing has appeared in Zeit Geschichte, Die Welt, Cabinet, and Neue Zrcher Zeitung, among many others. A native of Berlin, Germany, he lives in Istanbul, Turkey, where he delves deeply into a very different language.

Kevin Chroust lives in Chicago and is a 2005 graduate of Colorado State University. His sportswriting has appeared in publications from Chicago to San Francisco to Japan. He contributes to Yahoo! Sports and the online magazine the Nervous Breakdown, which published an excerpt of his recently completed memoir, Fix. Find him on Twitter @kevinchroust.

Rich Cohen is the author of nine books, including Tough Jews, Sweet and Low, and The Fish That Ate the Whale. His latest, Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, was published in October 2013. He lives in Connecticut.

Judy Copelands travel essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, the Florida Review, Legal Studies Forum, Literal Latte, the Malahat Review, Water~Stone Review, and Travelers Tales anthologies. Since 2005, she has taught creative nonfiction at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

Christopher de Bellaigue is a writer and broadcaster on the Middle East and South Asia. His most recent book is Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup.

Jesse Dukes is an independent writer and documentary filmmaker. For many years, he worked as a wilderness trip leader in Maine and California. He studied radio at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, worked for With Good Reason at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and is a principal at Big Shed Media. In 2011, his VQR essay Consider the Lobstermen was selected as one of Byliners Spectacular Nonfiction Stories. He recently produced the radio documentary The Great Moonshine Conspiracy, which aired on American Public Medias The Story and public radio stations. He is a contributing editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review and the founder of and principal at Pioneer Media Grantwriting.

David Farley is the author of the award-winning travel memoir/narrative history An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Churchs Strangest Relic in Italys Oddest Town, which is currently being made into a documentary, and coeditor of the anthology of essays Travelers Tales Prague and the Czech Republic: True Stories. Hes a contributing writer at Afar magazine and frequently writes for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, National Geographic Traveler, World Hum, and Gadling, among other publications. He teaches writing at New York University. His online home is www.dfarley.com.

Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, The Fishs Eye, On the Rez, Family, and Travels in Siberia, as well as Coyote v. Acme, Dating Your Mom, and Lamentations of the Father. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

Dimiter Kenarov is a freelance journalist and contributing editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review. His work has appeared in Esquire, Outside, The Nation, the International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Policy, among others. He currently lives in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Colleen Kinder has written essays and articles for the New Republic, Salon, National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times, Gadling, TheAtlantic.com, the Wall Street Journal, Ninth Letter, A Public Space, the New York Times Magazine, and Creative Nonfiction. She is the author of Delaying the Real World and currently teaches travel writing at Yale.

Peter Jon Lindberg is a New Yorkbased travel journalist and essayist and the editor at large for Travel + Leisure. He is a two-time James Beard Award finalist for his food writing, was named a Travel Journalist of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) in 2005, and was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2010 for his columns and commentary in Travel + Leisure. He can be reached via his website, www.peterjonlindberg.com.

David Sedaris is the author of the books Lets Explore Diabetes with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He lives in England.

Sex, pop culture, nascent trends, and eccentric characters are all grist for Grant Stoddards mill. With an eye for the surprising and ridiculous, the British-born Stoddard often reports from a participatory perspective, imbuing his stories with an engaging, visceral, dynamic feel and a humanistic focus. Stoddard has had two books published, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert and Great in Bed, which he coauthored with Dr. Debby Herbenick of the Kinsey Institute.

John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing editor for the New York Times Magazine and the author of Pulphead: Essays