Peter Lourie

Peter Lourie is the author of many books for young readers (and two travel memoirs for adults) about exploration, adventure and the environment - most recently Jack London and the Klondike Gold Rush and Locked in Ice: Nansen's Daring Quest for the North Pole, both from Henry Holt. Locked in Ice is a spellbinding biography of Fridtjof Nansen, the pioneer of polar exploration, with a spotlight on his harrowing three-year journey to the top of the world. A true adventurer, Lourie has traveled the world to research his subjects, from the cloud forest in Ecuador in search of Inca treasure, to Lake Turkana in northwestern Kenya on the Ethiopian border, to Terra del Fuego and the jungles of Rondonia, Brazil. He is also producing multimedia stories about the arctic for the National Science Foundation, recently returning from a month-long icebreaker trip in the Beaufort Sea (see arcticstories.net and peterlourie.com). Lourie holds a BA in classics from New York University, an MA in English Literature from University of Maine, and an MFA in nonfiction creative writing from Columbia University. He has taught at Columbia University and Middlebury College in Vermont, where he lives with his family.