Gretel Ehrlich was born on a horse ranch in California, and attended film school in UCLA. She is the author of thirteen books, ranging from poetry to fiction (including children’s fiction), narrative essays and biography. Among these is her bestselling memoir about being struck by lightning, A Match to the Heart.
She has won many awards including a Bellagio Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Whiting Award. She has also received grants from National Endowment funds and the National Geographic Society. She has been involved with the Cape Farewell project, bringing together artists and scientists on issues of climate change. As a correspondent she has reported from Kosovo, the Arctic, and Africa. Ehrlich has spent much of the last 13 years traveling with subsistence Inuit hunters by dogsled in Greenland and the Arctic. She and her husband live in Wyoming.
Two new books are forthcoming: Farthest North, a book of a year of circumpolar travel in the Arctic, and Gin Chow’s Book of Predictions, a novel.

More information: interview with Dave Weich of Powells.com