William Friar grew up near the banks of the Panama Canal. Though an American citizen, he has lived much of his life overseas. Besides Panama, he has called Denmark, India, and the United Kingdom home, and he spends as much time as possible traveling. Moon Panama is Bill's third Panama-related book. The others are an ecotourist guide, Adventures in Nature: Panama, and a photo-essay book, Portrait of the Panama Canal. He also writes about England, San Francisco, and various bits of South America.

Bill began his writing career as a stringer for the metro desk of The New York Times, where he found that covering stabbings, shootings, blizzards, and hockey parades was surprisingly good training for travel writing. He has also worked as a rock music critic, technology news editor, human biology instructor, writing coach, fundraiser, software manual author, and reporter for three daily newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area. His current day job is press officer for the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Bill's work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Arizona Republic, Neuen Zürcher Zeitung, San Jose Mercury News, Orange County Register, and Houston Chronicle, among other publications.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Bill also holds master’s degrees in English and American literature from Stanford and in journalism from Columbia University. He lives in London with his wife, Karen.