Kim Heacox

Kim Heacox has worked for the National Geographic Society as an assignment writer and photographer since 1985, he has twice won the Lowell Thomas Award for excellence in travel writing. He’s written four books for National Geographic, including Visions of a Wild America (1996), Shackleton: The Antarctic Challenge (1999), and An American Idea: The Making of the National Parks (2001), which earned him a consultant position on Ken Burns's 12-hour PBS film The National Parks: America's Best Idea documenting the history of the national parks and the U.S. conservation movement.

Kim's most recent book, The Only Kayak, is a coming-of-middle-age memoir about falling in love with Alaska (where he has lived for over thirty years). The book was a 2006 PEN USA Literary Award finalist in creative non-fiction. He recently finished his second novel, The Secret Language of Storms, and is now researching a non-fiction book on humpback whales and another non-fiction book on the transformational power of music, water and wildness.

His photos are sold around the world by Getty Images and Accent Alaska. He enjoys carpentry and playing the piano and guitar, and spending quiet time at home with his wife Melanie, in the little town of Gustavus (reachable only by boat or plane), next to Glacier Bay National Park where he has served as a park naturalist.