He interned at the Nation and subsequently worked at the Wall Street Journal for several years.
He lived in Silver City, NM for several years before moving to El Paso, Texas.
His book based on these experiences Fire Season: Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout was published in 2011 to widespread critical acclaim.
[1] It won the 2011 National Outdoor Book Award (Outdoor Literature) and the 2012 Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize.
[2] It also won the 2012 Reading the West Book Award for best adult non-fiction, given by the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association.