Paul Schneider grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, a college town in the western half of the state. After graduating from the public high school there, he attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and ultimately earned degrees in history and economics from Brown in 1984.
After stints working in refugee camps in Thailand, a prep-school in Switzerland, a winery in California, a wire-service office in Kenya, and graduate school (a drop-out!), he settled into magazine journalism in New York City. There he worked on staff at Esquire, where he helped to edit the Man AT His Best Section, wrote the Real Estate Column, and contributed many travel and other stories. He also worked or freelanced in various editorial capacities all over town, including the New York Times, Vanity Fair, National Audubon, Travel & Leisure, Oprah, and Elle, where he was for several years the travel columnist.
A series of features on environmental topics written for National Audubon led to his first book, The Adirondacks, A History of America's First Wilderness, which was a New York Times notable book of 1997. His second book, The Enduring Shore, A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, was also published by Henry Holt (2000) and was similarly well received. Nearly five years in the making, his third book, Brutal Journey appeared in May of 2006 to uniformly positive reviews.
His new book, Bonnie and Clyde, will be published by Henry Holt & Co. in the spring of 2009.
He and his wife, photographer Nina Bramhall, and their son Nathaniel, divide their time between Florida and Massachusetts.
