Rose Craig is a painter who lives in Berkeley, California. She was a freelance artist for many years, having illustrated a number of books, book covers, and articles, including The Flavors of Home. Later, she worked as a senior artist at Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley. Now retired, among her many loves are painting in oil and watercolor, photography, ceramics, gardening, and, most of all, spending time in the wilderness.

When Margit Roos-Collins was six months old, she moved to Riverside, California, where her parents would push her carriage through orange groves after storms and pile windfall oranges in beside her. Maybe it all began there. When the citrus groves were cut down and the mountains were no longer visible, her family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, but she found her way back to California in 1976. After writing The Flavors of Home, she became an attorney in environmental law. She subsequently raised two berry-picking companions and spent her time volunteering in their schools. She lives with her husband in Berkeley.

Artist and writer David Lance Goines was born May 29, 1945 in Grants Pass, Oregon, and is the oldest of eight children. His father, Warren Charles Goines (1921-2002) was a civil engineer. His mother, Wanda Burch Goines (1923 – 2016) was an accomplished artist and calligrapher. He attended the University of California at Berkeley as a Classics major, but in his second year was expelled as a consequence of his participation in the Free Speech Movement. In 1965 he apprenticed with a Berkeley lithographer, becoming in the fullness of time a journeyman of that Art and Mystery. In 1968 he founded Saint Hieronymus Press in the same Berkeley printshop where he had learned his trade. There he has remained, designing his work and printing it by both letterpress and photo-offset lithography.

Josie Iselin is author of eight books that focus on those forms in nature we find at hand—in particular, at the beach. She holds a BA in Visual and Environmental Studies from Harvard and an MFA from San Francisco State University. For over twenty years Josie has used her flatbed scanner and computer to generate imagery. She is still captivated by the fluidity with which this technique allows her to render and design with three-dimensional objects. Her writing and art focused on seaweeds, kelp, and sea otter put her on the forefront of ocean activism, collaborating with scientists and groups working to preserve the kelp forests of our Pacific Coast. As a fine artist, Josie exhibits large-scale prints at select galleries and museums, and she has designed a line of luxury scarves and shower curtains. She hopes that celebrating the ordinary wonders we find at the beach will bring thoughtfulness and stewardship to this extraordinary place of discovery. Visit her website at josieiselin.com.

Jessica Royer Ocken is a writer and editor based in Chicago. She has covered topics from technology to teenagers and fashion to fine arts for publications including the Chicago Tribune and Midwest Home Chicago. She has collaborated on several books and served as writer for the documentary project CITY 2000. She’s currently at work on a series of stories about The Children’s Place, an organization that supports children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

Pia Hinckle is a San Francisco-based writer and editor. She is publisher of The FruitGuys Almanac, an online healthy living magazine. She was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia Journalism School and has written for a number of publications including Newsweek, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, the San Francisco Examiner, Columbia Journalism Review, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Richard Cahan is the author of twelve books including an acclaimed history of the federal court in Chicago, A Court That Shaped America. He served as the picture editor of the Chicago Sun-Times and is currently an independent scholar at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Thomas Pinney is emeritus professor of English at Pomona College. He has published scholarly work on George Eliot, Lord Macaulay, and Rudyard Kipling, and several books on American wines including the two-volume A History of Wine in America (UC Press). The second volume of this definitive wine history won the 2006 International Association of Culinary Professionals Award for best book on wine, beer, or spirits.

Lesley Goren, an artist and illustrator, moved to Los Angeles in 2005. She quickly fell in love with the wilderness that surrounds and dots the city. As her interest in California native flora grew deeper she began to make art that explores these irreplaceable plants and places. Lesley’s work been shown in galleries, park visitor centers, and boutiques throughout California. You can visit her website at lesleygoren.com

Laura Cunningham, an artist and naturalist, studied paleontology and biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and has worked at various field biology jobs for the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other organizations, getting to know such species as the Owens Valley pupfish, the southern California steelhead trout, the Yosemite toad, and the Panamint alligator lizard. Simultaneously, she has been studying and painting California’s historic and living wildlife, flora, and unique landscapes. She lives near Death Valley National Park, where she cofounded the group Basin and Range Watch to explore the historical ecology of the desert ecosystems of California and Nevada, and to protect them. Visit her blog at laura-cunningham-art-nature.blogspot.com.

Robert E. Price, the award-winning executive editor of the Bakersfield Californian, has written and spoken extensively about the Bakersfield Sound for more than twenty years.

Vladimir Guerrero has taught Spanish language and literature at the University of California, Davis, the University of Oslo, and Michigan State University. His publications include academic articles on medieval literature as well as short fiction. The Anza Trail and the Settling of California is his first book.