Richard Preston’s critically and commercially acclaimed books have cemented his status as a first-rate investigative journalist and gifted storyteller, as well as put him in the forefront of the emerging diseases and biotechnology arenas. He first took the world by storm with The Hot Zone, the international best-seller that introduced the world to the threat of Ebola and other rain forest viruses. Spending 42 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, The Hot Zone inspired several fictional adaptations and has been translated into over 30 languagues. In The Cobra Event, also a bestseller, Preston turned his attention to the very real threat of biological terrorism. The Demon in the Freezer takes us back into the hot zone, delving with unprecedented detail into the government’s response to the anthrax attacks of October 2001--the first major bioterror event in the U.S. and the second largest investigation in FBI history. Preston’s latest, The Wild Trees, is an account of scientific and spiritual passion for the tallest trees in the world, the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. He expertly explores the startling biosystem of “the canopy” and shares the story of those who are committed to the preservation of this astonishing and largely unknown world.
Rita Charon is Professor of Clinical Medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine. She is a general internist in practice in the Associates of Internal Medicine in Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Charon graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1978 and trained in internal medicine at the Residency Program in Social Medicine at Montefiore Hospital in New York. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of English at Columbia in 1999, writing on the late works of Henry James and on literary analyses of medical texts. Dr. Charon has designed and directed Columbia’s teaching programs in medical interviewing, humanities and medicine, and narrative medicine and teaches seminars on the works of Henry James in Columbia’s English department. She has published and lectured extensively on linguistic studies of doctor-patient conversations, narrative competence in physicians and medical students, narrative ethics, and empathy in medical practice. Dr. Charon has held national leadership positions through the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Society for Health and Human Values, the Society of General Internal Medicine, and the American College of Physicians. She is a member of the founding faculty of the Certificate Program in Ethics and Humanities sponsored by Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her teaching methods and curricular designs have been replicated in many medical schools internationally. Her research has been supported by the NIH, the NEH, and several private foundations.