David Quammen is an American author and journalist who travels widely for research, usually to wild landscapes. His sixteen books include The Song of the Dodo (1996), The Reluctant Mr. Darwin (2006), and The Tangled Tree (2018). His 2012 book, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, described the dynamics of viral spillover from wildlife into humans; it essentially predicted in rather precise detail (not because Quammen was prescient, but because the scientists he listened to were) the events that led to the catastrophe we’re experiencing now. Quammen’s magazine work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He’s a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award and has received several awards for his books. He shares a home in Montana with his wife, Betsy Gaines Quammen, author of the book American Zion, plus two borzois, a cross-eyed cat, and a rescue python named Boots.