Cougar Claw - Cary J. Griffith

Award-winning author Cary J. Griffith grew up among the woods, fields, and emerald waters of eastern Iowa. His childhood fostered a lifelong love of wild places.

He earned a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa and an M.A. in library science from the University of Minnesota.

Griffith's books explore the natural world. In nonfiction, he covers the borderlands between civilization and wild places. In fiction, he focuses on the ways some people use flora and fauna to commit crimes, while others with more reverence and understanding of the natural world leverage their knowledge to bring criminals to justice.

In both genres, readers are likely to learn something about our relationship to the natural world and the creatures who inhabit it. I was 14 the first time I visited the lakes and boreal forests of northeastern Minnesota, says Griffith, and its beauty struck me. Griffith is also the author of Wolf Kill, Gunflint Burning, Lost in the Wild, and Opening Goliath.

He lives with his family in a suburb of Minnesota's Twin Cities.