Books
I didn’t start out writing books, but books were always one of my goals, and I’ve written my share.
From travel guides to poetry, from narrative non-fiction to memoir. I’ve worked with major publishers, and I’ve ghostwritten two bestsellers, including one of the most successful self-published books of all time.
American Tiger
WILD | adjective | : Living in a state of nature, not ordinarily tame or domesticated; uncontrolled
A motherless nine-year-old girl glances out her school bus window and notices a tiger licking its paws behind Target. Nobody else sees it and nobody believes her, not even her father, a local game warden, because it is well known that Bell Tern has an untamed imagination. But evidence mounts and with it, the possibility that Bell is telling the truth and a most unlikely predator could be prowling a seemingly placid suburb of Los Angeles.
Based on true events, rooted in the stunning Southern California landscape, and populated with vivid characters, American Tiger is about more than a frantic tiger hunt. It’s about a child’s quest for self-discovery, her stoic father’s struggle to come to terms with their past, and the innate wildness of every living thing.
Can’t Hurt Me
In 2017, I was introduced to David Goggins and my life changed.
It was good timing. Just over a year after publishing my first book from a major press, I was broke… again, and desperate for a gig. I knew enough about David’s story to know it had the potential to help readers turn their lives around. For the next year we worked tirelessly to put his incredible life story on the page, and when it was finally released in December 2018, it became an instant bestseller and now it is a certified classic.
A New York Times bestseller and a fixture on Amazon’s Most Read list since its debut, it has helped countless people all over the world.
Never Finished
David calls Can’t Hurt Me, Goggins 101. This is Goggins graduate school. When we got to work on the 2022 follow up, David issued a challenge. He wanted to write a book that was even better than the first, and I do believe we got there. Never Finished is a work of warrior philosophy. A philosophy developed, tested, and refined on North America’s roads and trails, and in its military, emergency rooms and wildfires.
We unpack brutal tales of David’s grandfather, his run across the state of Florida, and his astonishing attempt to overcome injury and become a rookie smoke jumper at 47 years old. Together these stories and others offer the reader a blueprint they can use to climb from the bottom of the barrel into a whole new stratosphere.
Never Finished is a New York Times bestseller, and debuted at number one on Amazon and Audible.
One Breath
In 2013, I scored an assignment to cover a freediving competition for The New York Times, and witnessed one of the sport’s most beloved athletes, Nick Mevoli, lose his life after an attempt to swim down to 72-meters and back on a single breath. His death in competition was a first in the sport and became a front-page story, and eventually my first book.
One Breath, first published by Crown in 2016, is an underwater Into the Wild, about a charismatic yet self-destructive young American, and his fellow freedivers — all incredible athletes in their own right — who are captivated by the same urge to swim as deep as possible, no matter the cost. Released to critical acclaim, it was published in three languages, remains in print, and helped inspire the team behind the hit Netflix documentary The Deepest Breath.