Michael Andrews is a writer and editor living in San Francisco. He grew up in Needles before attending the University of California, Berkeley.
Jeffrey Burbank is a Los Angeles-based writer who has contributed to various publications including The Los Angeles Review of Books and L.A. Weekly. He holds a master’s degree in English literature from The Johns Hopkins University and has recently served on the board of Hollywood Heritage, a nonprofit museum and historic preservation organization. He is currently working on a novel that takes place in the Mojave Desert.
Chris Clarke is a long-time environmental writer and activist. Clarke has reported extensively on desert issues, most notably at KCET-TV, where he served as Environment Editor for several years. He now works for the National Parks Conservation Association, where he manages the organization’s California Desert program. Chris has been in love with the Mojave since 1984, and finally moved to the desert full-time in 2008. He lives in Joshua Tree.
Edwin Corle (1906 – 1956) was a popular mid-century American author and Guggenheim Fellow. Corle is known for his engaging but not-so-factual portraits of desert personalities such as Fig Tree John. His novels and short story collections featuring the desert southwest include Mojave: A Book of Stories (1934), Fig Tree John (1935), and Billy the Kid (1953). Corle wrote for Atlantic Monthly, Harpers and The New Yorker. We have posthumously included Corle’s Old Woman of the Mountain, which was originally published in 1941 for American Folkways edited by Erskine Cadwell.
Tim Halbur is an audio/media artist, specializing in documentary‐driven interpretation using interviews as raw source material. Tim has an extensive history of creating music, designing audio for theater and environments and telling stories through sound. Tim has sound designed several projects in collaboration with Kim Stringfellow including There It Is—Take It! (2013) and Invisible-5 (2006) with lead artist Amy Balkin. Halbur worked with the Studio for Urban Projects (SUP) in 2010 to produce the acclaimed Native Ground: A Field Guide to Lake Union walking audio tour.
Dr. Barbara Gothard is an African American artist from modest Illinois roots, who aspires to tap into her creative potential with a contemporary art form known for exploring the subconscious mind while focusing on the challenge/promise of change. Gothard, who exhibits locally and internationally lives, works and is influenced by the ever-changing colors and majesty of the Palm Springs/Mojave Desert area.
Jenny Kane is an artist and educator whose work explores community-building in diverse environments. In 2016, she received an MFA in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design. Currently she coordinates a Volunteer Art Program for The Joshua Tree Art Innovation Laboratory (JT Lab), an NEA funded arts initiative, hosted by Joshua Tree National Park. She spends summers guiding mountain expeditions in the Sierra.
Philip M. Klasky (1953 – 1922) lectured in the Department of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University on issues of law, environmental justice, human rights, de-colonization, media literacy, cultural preservation and ethnography. He received his master’s degree in Geography and Human Environmental Studies from SFSU. Klasky is the former director of The Storyscape Project of The Cultural Conservancy, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and revitalization of endangered Native American stories, songs, languages and ancestral lands. Klasky was involved with the fifteen-year campaign that halted the federal government’s bid for a radioactive waste dump at Ward Valley.
Marli Miller is a senior instructor and researcher in geology at the University of Oregon. She completed an MS and Ph.D. in structural geology in 1987 and 1992, respectively. She teaches a variety of courses, including structural geology, field geology and geophotography.
Julia Sizek studies land use, environmental conservation, and sacred site protection in the eastern Mojave Desert of southeastern California. She is an Anthropology PhD student at UC-Berkeley and an Associate Scholar with the Native American Land Conservancy, a non-profit organization that preserves and protects sacred sites in southeastern California. She is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and 2016 University of California Human Rights Fellow, and was the Dr. Aizik Wolf Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship from the University of Chicago Human Rights Program (2013-2014). She is an amateur geographer, avid runner and archivist of desert history.
Kim Stringfellow is an artist, educator, writer and curator residing in Joshua Tree, California. Her work bridges cultural geography, public practice and experimental documentary into creative, socially engaged transmedia experiences. She is a 2016 Andy Warhol for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Photography. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Claremont University in 2018. Stringfellow is a professor at San Diego State University’s School of Art + Design. She is the creator and project director for the Mojave Project.
Aurora Tang is a researcher and curator. She is Program Manager at the Center for Land Use Interpretation and the former Managing Director of High Desert Test Sites. She received a master’s degree in Art and Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California. Selected projects include: Down to Earth: Experimental Aircraft Crash Sites of the Mojave (with CLUI); Pit Stops: Open Pit Mine Overlooks of the West (with CLUI); and Taking the Waters, a two-day HDTS program looking at the cultural significance of water in the desert, sited at past and present mineral spring retreat centers Zzyzx and Tecopa Hot Springs.