John Christensen

John Wade Christensen is the author of "Coming Home: A Stranger in the Smokies," "Perfect Swing, Imperfect Lies: The Legacy of Golf’s Longest Hitter" and "Serve: The Washington Tennis & Education Foundation Story." He assisted with the editing and writing of "Moloka'i: An Island in Time" and contributed to books about Martin Luther King Jr. and Hurricane Katrina.

As a journalist, he has written for The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post, Atlanta Magazine, Northeast Magazine and newspapers in Atlanta, Hartford, Honolulu, Louisville, Providence and Winston-Salem. As a senior writer at CNN.com he contributed to the websites for two CNN-TV specials: "Millennium," and the award-winning series, "The Cold War."

He won a national award for magazine writing and has been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes three times.

His assignments have included rafting the Ohio River, canoeing the Canadian Boundary Waters, kayaking the Na Pali coast of Kauai and flying in an F-4F Phantom fighter jet. He has interviewed a Nobel Peace Prize laureate (Linus Pauling); two Pulitzer Prize winners (biographer Leon Edel; and poet W.S. Merwin) and two precocious 19-year-olds (Magic Johnson and Yo-Yo Ma); three baseball Hall of Famers (Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays) and a quarterback who won four Super Bowls (Joe Montana).

Other interviews include artist Billy Al Bengston, photographer Aaron Siskind and sculptor Isamu Noguchi; musicians Count Basie, B.B. King, Johnny Cash, the Allman Brothers, Tammy Wynette and ZZ Top; athletes Julius Erving, John McEnroe, and Sugar Ray Leonard; golfer Gene Sarazen; authors Carl Sagan, Frank Herbert, Philip Caputo and Michael Pollan; and poets Galway Kinnell, Gary Snyder and Diane Wakoski.

He interviewed spiritual authors Ram Dass, Neale Donald Walsch and Paul Reps, and profiled Pope John Paul II and the Dalai Lama. He interviewed the first man to reach the top of Mt. Everest (with Hilary), Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, and the first man to ski down it, Yuichiro Miura. Also: supermodels Jerry Hall and Marie Helvin; Playboy's 25th anniversary playmate; TV personality Dick Clark; actor Vincent Price and Formula 1 world champion Jackie Stewart.

As an actor, he has in more than 40 commecials and hosted an academic video series.

His website is www.johnchristensenonline.com.