David Leach is an associate professor of creative nonfiction and the director of professional writing in UVic's Department of Writing and has been on the Advisory Board of The Malahat Review for two years (and an avid reader of it for 22). He worked as the City Life editor of Monday Magazine and managing editor of explore: Canada's Outdoor Magazine, and his freelance travel writing and personal essays have appeared in numerous regional, national, and international publications. His "nonfiction novel" Fatal Tide: When the Race of a Lifetime Goes Wrong came out in 2008 (Penguin Canada). For nonfiction, he is a big fan of the 4 J's: Joan Didion, Jon Krakauer, Jonathan Raban, and John Vaillant. His all-time favourite book: John Updike's The Poorhouse Fair. He has most recently been reading the stories, novels, and essays of Amos Oz as background research for an investigative-travelogue-historical-memoir about the rise and fall and rise of Israel's kibbutz movement.