Unbound (King)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; M.A., New
   York University
• Currently—lives in Richmond, Virginia

Dean King is the author of numerous books, including Unbound: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival (2010), and the highly acclaimed biography Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed. King has also written for many publications, including Men's Journal, Esquire, Outside, New York magazine, and the New York Times. He lives in Richmond, Virginia. (From the pubisher and Wikipedia.)

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The award winning author of ten books and dozens of stories in national magazines, Dean King has a deep and abiding passion for historical and adventure narratives. His earliest works—A Sea of Words; Harbors and High Seas; and Every Man Will Do His Duty—are companion books to Patrick O'Brian's monumental Aubry-Maturin novel series and are the first and most popular companion books to the 20-novel series.

King wrote a groundbreaking biography of O'Brian, published just three month's after O'Brian's death in Dublin—Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed (2000). King appeared in a BBC documentary about O'Brian and on ABC World News Tonight and NPR's Talk of the Nation.

King followed this biography with the national bestseller Skeletons on the Zahara (2004), which tells the true story of the shipwreck of a Connecticut merchant brig Commerce on the west coast of Africa in 1815. The crew was enslaved on the desert by nomadic Arabs and had to travel 800 miles across the Sahara to reach freedom. Based on the memoirs of Captain James Riley and sailor Archibald Robbins, which King discovered in the New York Yacht Club library, and translated into ten languages, Skeletons was a multiple book of the year selection, the basis of a feature in National Geographic Adventure and a two-hour special documentary on the History Chanel. It is currently being developed as a feature film in London.

Unbound: A True Story of War, Love, and Survival, about the 30 courageous women who walked 4,000 miles across China with Mao Zedong, in 1934, was published in 2010. While crossing eleven provinces, the 30 women forded dozens of raging rivers, scaled ice-covered peaks on the Tibetan Plateau, and survived ambushes, bombings, severe hunger and thirst, typhoid fever, and the births of half a dozen children. Their epic march helped reshape China forever. Daniel A. Metraux, professor of Asian Studies at Mary Baldwin College wrote that "Unbound is a must read for any student of modern Chinese history and ranks with Red Star Over China as one of the classic narratives of the early days of the CCP.”

In addition to his books, King is a past director of book publishing at National Review, an original contributing editor to Men's Journal, and the founder of Bubba Magazine. He has contributed stories to Book Marks, Esquire, Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure, New York, New York Times, Outside, Travel + Leisure, and the Daily Telegraph.

An avid hiker, King likes to clear his mind on cross-country treks. He writes:

I took my first major walk—190 miles coast to coast in England—in 1986 after escaping a tedious temporary job as sales clerk in a London Tie-Rack. The job made the open air all the more glorious, even if the cloud ceiling was about head high almost every day. Ever since then, my friend, Rob, an English investment banker, and I plan walks whenever we can. Various friends sign on for these no-frills holidays. On our first journey, we followed Alf Wainwright’s route through the North York Moors (stark and lovely like the end of the world), the Yorkshire Dales (where we encountered horizontal sheets of rain), and the Lake District (lush hills with rocky tops ringing with their literary inspiration). It was so much fun, we did it again in 2000.

In between, we walked Offa’s Dyke (160 rugged and breathtaking miles along the Welsh-English border) in 1987; Pilgrim’s Way, from Winchester, once the political center of England, to Canterbury, then the ecclesiastical center of England, with my wife and a friend in 1989; and the Tour du Mont Blanc, which takes you through Switzerland, France and England, in 1993. The toughest walk we have tackled was the Walkers' Haute Route, from Zermatt to Chamonix, in 1996. Each morning began with a brutal uphill stretch. One friend finally had to take a bus and meet us ahead.

In 1987, King and his wife, Jessica King, and some friends tackled the one-day Round Manhattan Walk (about 36 miles), about which King says, “The battering of walking on the pavement all day left me sorer than the New York Marathon would a few years later.” Other favorite journeys include the Mont Ventoux midnight climb, in France, the Na Pali Coast, in Kauai, Hawaii, and a series of inn-to-inn walks that Dean did for Mid-Atlantic Country Magazine: From Back Bay, Virginia, to the Outer Banks of North Carolina along the Allegheny Trail in West Virginia"; and on the Delaware River Trail, 1994.

In 1999, Dean sailed as a sailor trainee on board the tallship HMS Rose from New York to Bermuda. And in 2001, he retraced Captain James Riley’s route on foot and on camelback through Western Sahara, which informed his book Skeletons on the Zahara.

Dean is a founder, past co-chair, and advisory board member of the James River Writers organization, which sponsors the annual James River Writers Conference in Richmond, Virginia. Held on the first weekend of October at the Library of Virginia in historic downtown Richmond, the conference is known for its relaxed and collegial atmosphere as well as for its noteable guests. (Excerpted from the author's website.)