Peter Chilson teaches writing and literature at Washington State University. He is the author of the travelogue Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa and the story collection Disturbance-Loving Species, which won the Bread Loaf Katherine Bakeless Nason Prize in short fiction. His essays and stories have appeared in Ascent, Audubon, The American Scholar, Gulf Coast, High Country News, The Long Story, the North American Review, North Dakota Quarterly, West Africa, TheSmartSet, and twice in Best American Travel Writing.