Sandy Compton grew up in Western Montana, where he lives still. He is an avid backpacker, wilderness advocate and traveler, particularly in the American West. Sandy has been writing for publication for 30 years and has multiple novels, non-fiction works, and hundreds of essays and articles to his credit. As an addict in recovery, he writes unflinchingly about his own struggle and the nature of addiction in a memoir, "Side Trips From Cowboy: Addiction, Recovery and the Western American Myth." "Side Trips From Cowboy" was published in 2009, with a second edition released in May of 2013. His novels include "Jason's Passage" (1995), "Archer MacClehan & The Hungry Now," (2005) "The Friction of Desire" (2012), "Scars on Top of Scars" (2014)," and "Archer MacClehan & The Girl Who Wouldn't Stop Running," (2014). He has also recently released a children's Christmas book, "Caleb's Miracle," and "Camping In Wyoming," by his grandmother, Mariam Lawton Clayton. "Camping In Wyoming" was designed around Mariam's handwritten account and original "kodaks" of her honeymoon trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1910. With eight books to his credit and more on the way, he has become an important regional voice in the Northern Rockies. He has also helped other authors make their books reality through Blue Creek Press (www.bluecreekpress.com) In his "other" life, Compton is program coordinator for Friends of the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness (wwwscotchmanpeaks.org), advocating for wilderness designation for the 88,000-acre Scotchman Peaks on the border between Idaho and Montana near where he lives.