Lawrence Cheek

Cheek has written fifteen nonfiction books on travel, nature, Native American history, and architecture. His most recent book is a memoir, The Year of the Boat: Beauty, Imperfection and the Art of Doing It Yourself. He has been architecture critic for the Tucson Citizen, New Times of Phoenix, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and has twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He has also written magazine articles for American Heritage, Sunset, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Seattle Weekly, Seattle Metropolitan, Arizona Highways, and others. For more information and an archive of articles, visit www.lawrencewcheek.com.

John B. Saul

Saul worked at the Seattle Times for 28 years, first as a copy editor, then as a news editor and finally as an assigning editor on the city desk. He directed coverage on local government, consumer affairs, transportation and special projects including a series commemorating the 150th anniversary of Seattle’s founding. Since 2005, Saul has been writing and editing as a freelancer and has taught reporting and editing at The University of Montana and Seattle University.

Guest Speakers

Robert Birkby

Birkby is a writer and nationally-known expert on outdoor leadership and backcountry skills. Mountain Madness: Scott Fischer, Mt. Everest, and a Life Lived on High, his latest book, was a finalist at the 2008 Banff Mountain Book Festival. Birkby is also author of the three most current editions of The Boy Scout Handbook (1990, 1998, 2009), and much of the other major literature of the Boy Scouts of America. He recently traveled to Siberia to consult with Russians who are using his book Lightly on the Land: The SCA Trail Building and Maintenance Manual to guide them in establishing a system of hiking trails around Lake Baikal. Birkby will speak in Craig English's course.

Daniel James Brown

Brown is the author of The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride (HarperCollins/William Morrow, 2009) and Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 (Lyons Press/Harper Perennial, 2007). Before turning to writing full time, he was an English instructor at Stanford and San Jose State University and a Managing Editor at Microsoft. He lives in the country east of Redmond. You can learn more about his work at www.danieljamesbrown.com. Brown will speak in John B. Saul's course.

Robert Cumbow

Cumbow heads the intellectual property practice at a Seattle law firm, where he counsels a wide variety of clients on intellectual property, Internet, advertising and media law issues, concentrating on trademark, domain name, and copyright protection and dispute resolution. He also assists authors in obtaining, negotiating, and finalizing agreements with agents and publishers. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in English and a law degree from Seattle University, where he is currently an adjunct professor, teaching Trademark Law and Advertising Law. He writes frequently on law, language, and movies, and is the author of book-length analyses of the films of Sergio Leone and John Carpenter. His writing on film and film music appears on the Web sites Parallax View, House Next Door, and 24 Lies a Second. Cumbow will speak in Craig English's course.

Instructors and guest speakers are subject to change.