Alisa Smith, a Vancouver-based freelance writer who has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, has been published in "Outside," "Explore," "Canadian Geographic," "Reader's Digest," "Utne," and many other periodicals. The books Way Out There and Liberalized feature her work. J.B. MacKinnon is the author of Dead Man in Paradise, which won the 2006 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction. His feature reportage on issues ranging from African prisons to anarchism in America has earned three National Magazine Awards.