Douglas Preston Biography

Douglas Preston was born in Cambridge Massachusetts in 1956 and grew up in the deadly boring suburb of Wellesley.
After unaccountably being rejected by Stanford University Preston attended Pomona College in Claremont California where he studied mathematics biology physics anthropology chemistry geology and astronomy before settling down to English literature. After graduating Preston began his career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York as an editor writer and finally manager of publications. Preston also taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University and served as managing editor of Curator a journal for museum professionals. His eight-year stint at the Museum resulted in the nonfiction book Dinosaurs in the Attic edited by a rising young star at St. Martin's Press a polymath by the name of Lincoln Child. During this period Preston gave Child a midnight tour of the museum and in the darkened Hall of Late Dinosaurs under a looming T. Rex Child turned to Preston and said: “This would make the perfect setting for a thriller!” That thriller would of course be Relic.
In 1986 Preston piled everything he owned into the back of a Subaru and moved from New York City to Santa Fe to write full time. After the requisite period of penury Preston achieved a small success with the publication of Cities of Gold a nonfiction book about Coronado's search for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola. To research the book Preston and the photographer Walter W. Nelson retraced on horseback 1000 miles of Coronado's route across Arizona and New Mexico packing their supplies and sleeping under the stars—and nearly killing themselves in the process. Since then he has published other nonfiction books on the history of the American Southwest Talking to the Ground and The Royal Road.

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