ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

John N. Maclean was a reporter, writer and editor for The Chicago Tribune for 30 years; he spent most of his newspaper career as a Washington correspondent. He was, for more than a decade, the paper's diplomatic correspondent, covering Henry Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy. Maclean was later the newspaper's foreign editor. He resigned in 1995 to write FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire.

The book was published in the fall of 1999 -- to critical acclaim. The Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association, which represents independent booksellers in the Rocky Mountain states, awarded the book their prize for best non-fiction of the year. Maclean continues to write about wildland fire and other matters; he now divides his time between Washington, D.C. and his family cabin in Montana.