John Vaillant

John Vaillant’s first book was the national bestseller The Golden Spruce, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction in 2005. That was followed by another award-winner: 2010's The Tiger. He is also a freelance magazine writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Outside and The Walrus. In 2006, he was the recipient of a grant from the National Geographic Society Expeditions Council. His work in this and other fields has taken him to five continents and five oceans. Vaillant has homesteaded in Alaska, fished in the Bering Sea, sailed to Hawaii, taught learning-disabled children, skied across the Beartooth Mountains, pursued vampires in Transylvania, worked with juvenile delinquents, ridden a motorcycle powered by a Corvette engine, taken part in a Navajo peyote ceremony, swam with beluga whales in Hudson’s Bay, participated in two homebirths, mopped a thousand floors, played slide guitar and sung for money, crossed the Rockies on horseback, hopped trains, gotten drunk at a Romanian shepherds’ convention and led workshops with people ranging from convicts to corporate executives on issues of race, gender and globalization. John's 2015 novel, The Jaguar's Children, takes readers inside a tanker truck during an illegal border crossing and into the life of Hector, a young man who risks his life to get to El Norte.