Alan Bisbort is a writer, editor, and researcher who has authored or coauthored nearly 20 books of history, biography, travel, and poetry, and contributed to numerous other books. He has worked for the Library of Congress, on staff or on contract, since 1977. As a freelance journalist, he is a regular contributor to The New York Times, the Hartford and Valley Advocates, Yale Environment Journal, Yale Medicine, Connecticut, American Politics Journal, AMP and Ugly Things. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, American Way, Los Angeles Times, City Paper, Creem, Biblio and Washingtonian. Though Alan lives on the East Coast, he has spent a great deal of time in California over the past ten years, researching three previous editions of California Beaches with Parke Puterbaugh. Since high school, he has also been guilty of unrepentant California dreaming. Alan lives near New Haven, Connecticut with his wife, the award-winning journalist Tracey O’Shaughnessy, their son Paul James, and their ageless dog, Sam.

Parke Puterbaugh is the author, coauthor, or editor of nine books, including a volume on wetlands for the US Environmental Protection Agency and two books on the music and culture of the 1960s. He is a former senior editor and longtime contributor to Rolling Stone magazine. His writing has also appeared in USA Today, Outside, Men's Journal, Stereo Review and many other national publications. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Parke holds bachelor's degrees in English and sociology and a master's degree in environmental science, with an emphasis on the study of shorelines. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with his wife Carol and daughter Hayley.