Distinguished poet and essayist John Haines is the author of more than ten collections of poetry. His recent works include At The End Of This Summer: Poems 1948-1954 (Copper Canyon Press, 1997); Owl In The Mask Of The Dreamer (1993); and New Poems 1980-88 (1990), for which he received both the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and the Western States Book Award. He has also published a book of essays entitled Fables And Distances: New And Selected Essays (1996), and a memoir, The Stars, The Snow, The Fire: Twenty-five Years In The Northern Wilderness (1989).

John Haines has taught at Ohio University, George Washington University, and the University of Cincinnati. Named a Fellow by The Academy of American Poets in 1997, his other honors include the Alaska Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, two Guggenheim Fellowships, an Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress.

Haines was born in 1924 in Norfolk, Virginia. He has studied at the National Art School, the American University, and the Hans Hoffmann School of Fine Art. He has spent a total of fifty years in the Alaskan wilderness, which has contributed to his unique narrative voice. He currently lives in Helena, Montana.