PETER HELLER is the national bestselling author of The Orchard, Burn, The Last Ranger, The Guide, The River, Celine, The Painter, and The Dog Stars. The Painter was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the prestigious Reading the West Book Award, and The Dog Stars has been published in twenty-six languages to date. Heller is also the author of four nonfiction books, including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in poetry and fiction, and he lives in Denver, Colorado.