Media Kit
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Short Bio
Peter Heller is an award winning fiction writer and the author of acclaimed novels The Dog Stars, The River, Celine, and The Last Ranger, among others. He is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a former contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. An award winning adventure writer, he is the author of four books of literary nonfiction. Heller was born and raised in New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. At the Iowa Writers Workshop he earned an MFA in both fiction and poetry, and was awarded the prestigious Michener Fellowship for his narrative poem The Psalms of Malvine. He is a passionate outdoorsman and lives with his wife in Colorado.
NYT Bestselling Author | National Bestselling Author | Reading the West Book Award Winner
Full Bio
Peter Heller is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a former contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. He is an award winning adventure writer and the author of four books of literary nonfiction. He lives in Denver. Heller was born and raised in New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire where he became an outdoorsman and whitewater kayaker. He traveled the world as an expedition kayaker, writing about challenging descents in the Pamirs, the Tien Shan mountains, the Caucuses, Central America and Peru. He was the first man, with a Kiwi paddler named Roy Bailey, to kayak the Muk Su River in the High Pamirs of Tadjikistan. The river was known as the Everest of Rivers in the Soviet Union, and the last team that had attempted it lost five of their eleven men. The run was 17 days of massive whitewater through a canyon inhabited by wolves and snow leopards.
At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received an MFA in fiction and poetry, he won a Michener fellowship for his epic poem “The Psalms of Malvine.” He has worked as a dishwasher, construction worker, logger, offshore fisherman, kayak instructor, river guide, and world class pizza deliverer. Some of these stories can be found in Set Free in China, Sojourns on the Edge. In the winter of 2002 he joined, on the ground team, the most ambitious whitewater expedition in history as it made its way through the treacherous Tsangpo Gorge in Eastern Tibet. He chronicled what has been called The Last Great Adventure Prize for Outside, and in his book Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River.
The gorge — three times deeper than the Grand Canyon — is sacred to Buddhists, and is the inspiration for James Hilton’s Shangri La. It is so deep there are tigers and leopards in the bottom and raging 25,000 foot peaks at the top, and so remote and difficult to traverse that a mythical waterfall, sought by explorers since Victorian times, was documented for the first time in 1998 by a team from National Geographic. The book won a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, was number three on Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List” of all pop culture, and a Denver Post review ranked it “up there with any adventure writing ever written.”
In December, 2005, on assignment for National Geographic Adventure, he joined the crew of an eco-pirate ship belonging to the radical environmental group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it sailed to Antarctica to hunt down and disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet.
The ship is all black, sails under a jolly Roger, and two days south of Tasmania the engineers came on deck and welded a big blade called the Can Opener to the bow—a weapon designed to gut the hulls of ships. In The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals, Heller recounts fierce gales, forty foot seas, rammings, near-sinkings, and a committed crew’s clear-eyed willingness to die to save a whale. The book was published by Simon and Schuster’s Free Press in September, 2007.
In the fall of 2007 Heller was invited by the team who made the acclaimed film The Cove to accompany them in a clandestine filming mission into the guarded dolphin-killing cove in Taiji, Japan. Heller paddled into the inlet with four other surfers while a pod of pilot whales was being slaughtered. He was outfitted with a helmet cam, and the terrible footage can be seen in the movie. The Cove went on to win an Academy Award. Heller wrote about the experience for Men’s Journal.
Heller’s most recent memoir, about surfing from California down the coast of Mexico, Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, was published by The Free Press in 2010. Can a man drop everything in the middle of his life, pick up a surfboard and, apprenticing himself to local masters, learn to ride a big, fast wave in six months? Can he learn to finally love and commit to someone else? Can he care for the oceans, which are in crisis? The answers are in. The book won a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which called it a “powerful memoir…about love: of a woman, of living, of the sea.” It also won the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature.
Heller’s debut novel, The Dog Stars, was published by Knopf in August, 2012. It was the Apple iBooks Novel of the Year, Hudson Booksellers top fiction pick of the Year, and an Atlantic Monthly and San Francisco Examiner Best Book of the Year. It was critically celebrated and a breakout bestseller, and has been published in TWENTY-SIX languages.
His second novel, The Painter, (Knopf, 2014). Publishers Weekly, in its Starred review, called it “masterful”. It won the Colorado Book Award and the prestigious Reading the West Book Award, shared in the past by western writers such as Cormac McCarthy and Terry Tempest Williams. It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Hudson Books’ top fiction pick of the year, and an Amazon Top Twenty.
Celine, a novel, came out from Knopf in March, 2017. Prepublication, it was an Entertainment Weekly top ten most anticipated book of 2017, and a Library Journal editor’s pick.
The River, was published with Knopf in March, 2019. It’s the story of two college students on a wilderness canoe trip–a gripping tale of a friendship tested by fire, white water, and violence. The River is a National Bestseller, an Indie Next Pick, and has been included on many “Best Of” lists for 2019. Denise Mina at The New York Times Book Review called it an “Utter joy… A suspenseful tale told with glorious drama and lyrical flair.” The Guide followed in August, 2021 – it’s a heart-racing thriller which returns to Jack (from The River), who is hired by an elite fishing lodge in Colorado, where he uncovers a plot of shocking menace amid the natural beauty of sun-drenched streams and forests.
The Last Ranger, published with Knopf in August 2023, is a vibrant, lyrical novel about an enforcement ranger in Yellowstone National Park who likes wolves better than most people. When a clandestine range war threatens his closest friend, he must shake off his own losses and act swiftly to discover the truth and stay alive.
Heller’s latest novel, Burn, is out from Knopf in August, 2024. First readers are absolutely wild about it. “Heart-breakingly beautiful, and so heart pounding I literally read all night,” is a typical response. It’s about two lifelong friends in their mid-thirties who meet in the wild country of northern Maine every year to go hunting. A week into their trip, they come upon a blown bridge and a burned out village. They soon realize that Maine has seceded from the union while they’ve been gone.
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Photos
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Book Covers
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Talks
- The Careening, Wonderful Road From Nonfiction To Fiction
- Sense Of Place In Fiction And Non-Fiction
- The Poetry Of Place In Writing Fiction
- How To Survive A Career As An Adventure Journalist
- Welcome To The Sixth Great Mass Extinction, Now Have Fun!
- Rivers, Mountains, And The Alchemy Of Storytelling: A Writer’s Journey
- Why We Go Into The Wild
- A Writer’s Process: Technique, Method, And The Five Touchstones
- A Talk And Reading On Each Novel: The Catalysts And The Process — Author Presentation
- The Careening, Wonderful Road From Nonfiction To Fiction
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Videos
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Feedback
Chris Barge, Boulder Public Library 2023
"It was an absolute blast last week to be in the room at your author talk at the Boulder Bookstore and meet you afterwards. You delivered such terrific energy, laughter and insights! The assembled, standing-room-only audience was gripped by your presence -- and radio and podcast listeners, I'm sure, will also hang on every word. Thank you for a special evening."
Highland Park Literary Festival, 2023
"Peter Heller was easy going, approachable, flexible, and engaging. His presentations were relevant, whether to a small group of adults or a large audience of high schoolers. You could hear a pin drop when Heller talked to and held the attention of more than 600 students in our high school auditorium."
Colorado Library Association
"Peter Heller is a magnificent speaker who will hold an audience enraptured for an hour at a time. From his excellent reading voice, to larger than life anecdotes, Peter will make you laugh and cry and wish you had learned to kayak."
Gunnison Library
"Peter was a thoughtful and engaging presenter. He hooked our crowd from when he first sat down to read and had their full attention through the end of the talk. He truly is a masterful storyteller and weaves an explanation of his craft and process beautifully into his stories, both in and off the page."
Bemis Public Library
"Peter Heller is an engaging storyteller both on the page and in front of an audience. The stories and anecdotes he shared with our audience had them in stitches and wiping away the tears. Peter is a charming presenter and so kind to his fans. The audience was delighted by Peter's program and we can't wait to invite him back."
Denver Public Library
"Everyone in the room instantly was entranced when Peter Heller spoke at the Park Hill Branch of Denver Public Library. His love of language and storytelling shines through, and his gracious and easy-going style made the audience feel like they were in the presence of a friend. From reciting ancient Chinese poetry to reading a passage from The River, Peter gained attendees' close attention and kept it for the entirety of the presentation. We can't wait to host him again!"
Beaver County BookFest
"Peter Heller is a fantastic speaker. We brought him in for Beaver County BookFest and he totally charmed the crowd at our opening night event. Not only is he a great storyteller, but he also has a wonderful sense of humor that makes him all the more likable."
Vail Mountain School
"Peter Heller instantly endeared himself to our students. His natural, easygoing style of storytelling, his infectious giggle, and his willingness to treat these teenagers like adults fully won them over. Whether it was in front of 175 students and teachers in the theater or in the more intimate break out sessions in the library, Peter's writing advice, captivating stories, and down-to-earth humor provided our community the opportunity to see writing not just as a career, but as a natural part of a thoughtful life."
Jackson Hole Writers Conference
"Peter Heller instantly endeared himself to our students. His natural, easygoing style of storytelling, his infectious giggle, and his willingness to treat these teenagers like adults fully won them over. Whether it was in front of 175 students and teachers in the theater or in the more intimate break out sessions in the library, Peter's writing advice, captivating stories, and down-to-earth humor provided our community the opportunity to see writing not just as a career, but as a natural part of a thoughtful life."
National Forest Foundation
"Peter is a captivating storyteller, bringing to life not only the natural world he loves and the characters that pass through it, but also how they shape his journeys. His ability to transport an audience through time, through place, and through the eyes of one who has wandered this globe is compelling. He moves easily from the humor and self-deprecations of mishaps in the wild to the deep reservoirs of what it means to be a steward of our natural heritage."
Kingswood Oxford School
"Our student body saw a writer who is gregarious, friendly, deeply sincere and thoughtful, but who also loves to have fun. I have had a blast getting to know Peter and his works, learning alongside my students and peers."
Douglas County Libraries
"Peter Heller is a masterful storyteller who never fails to amaze his audience. He has a way of engaging throughout his presentation with charm and wit. Real and down to earth Peter is a joy and we loved having him at the library."
Marion County Library
"From his books to his presentation, you are immediately taken to the great outdoors. Peter wowed the audience and kept them entertained, even in the book signing line. His energy was boundless!"
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Honors, Awards & Recognition
NYT Best Seller
National Best Seller
Reading the West Book Award Winner