MARK SPITZER is the author of Season of the Gar, Beautifully Grotesque Fish of the American West, and the Torrey House Press novel, Monster Fishing. He has appeared on the Animal Planet series River Monsters and consulted for National Geographic's Monster Fish show. Spitzer was a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Central Arkansas and lived part-time in New York's Mid-Hudson River Valley until the end of his life in early 2023.