Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /usr/www/users/dakota00/content/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-simple-survey/functions.php on line 480

A native of tiny Andover, Connecticut, Dave graduated with a journalism degree from Marietta College in Ohio and spent several years as a newspaper reporter in Connecticut. In 1996, he left a steady job to become a freelancer. As part of his new gig, he signed on with a buddy looking for help with his alternative bi-weekly newspaper, the Waterbury Observer. There, Dave wrote magazine-length stories about all sorts of characters: a reclusive woman battling to keep 65 dogs in her house; a teen-age girl who got arrested for wearing blue jeans in defiance of a school dress code; a homeless man who died mysteriously and anonymously in back seat of a car. That job changed everything.

Around that time Dave started writing for Connecticut Magazine, and when he moved down to New York City in 1999 he launched into a full-time freelance career writing for a number of publications: Backpacker, National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, Outside, The New York Times, Business 2.0 and Travel + Leisure, to name a few. He went looking for stories in adventurous places like Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Lebanon and Hungary. He wrote a New York City guidebook about outdoor pursuits such as kayaking and rock climbing. In 2004, Dave landed a job as an editor at Backpacker, where, while learning how to light a campfire when all the wood is wet, he was part of a small team that won two National Magazine Awards—the first ever for that title. And that led, in 2008, to a job at Bicycling magazine, where Dave is now executive editor.

Lost Rights is his first book. It was seven years in the making. He lives in Emmaus, Pennsylvania with his wife, Ann Quigley, and their son, Vaughn.

Here are a few stories published over the years:

BICYCLING: When you feel the elemental urge to connect two points on a map, you’re required to respond—even if you didn’t expect the fauxhawk, the firecrackers, the Old Chub or the all-downhill day that climbed 7,100 feet.

BACKPACKER: On a snowy night in New Hampshire, Congressional candidate Gary Dodds crashed his car, wandered into the woods, and collapsed. Twenty-seven hours later, rescuers carried him out. And then the real drama began.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: When is a new road a big deal? When one opens in a previously roadless place.

TRAVEL + LEISURE: Buried under the jungles of Guatemala is a Mayan kingdom with thousand-year-old pyramids larger than those found in Egypt. Now it’s the subject of an unlikely modern-day turf war.