About me (a brief bio)

My name is Dan White. I am an author, lecturer, freelance writer and web editor. My first book, The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind and Almost Found Myself on the Pacific Crest Trail, was published by HarperCollins and was a San Francisco Chronicle and West Coast indie bookstore bestseller.

I have taught poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction and a required essay-writing class at San Jose State University, and a freshman essay writing class at Columbia University. I also led the inaugural Bookshop Santa Cruz Outdoors writing and hiking event, guiding a group of Cactus Eaters readers into the woods for reading, poetry and nonfiction writing. My travel writing appears in the New York Times and other venues.

Between 2007-8, I was a Steinbeck Fellow at SJSU.