The author, a lapsed farmer and iambic fundamentalist is a reluctant transcendentalist. Raised in Iowa, he ate rolled oats with horses, taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied on a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at Yale University. After moving to Washington, D.C., he won the Larry Neal Award for Poetry, received a grant from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and studied at Bread Loaf.

Following policy work on energy and the environment during a decade of UN climate change negotiations, he helped rebuild and served as Vice President of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the Presidency.

He and his wife, Katherine, collected and edited the recipes and stories in the Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook. They and two daughters live in Washington, D. C. [Photography by Kate C. Kirlin)