Award-winning author Katherine Ayres charts a lyrical, thoughtful path through the lives of bears she encounters in the forests of Western Massachusetts. Using her natural curiosity and wit, Ayres explores how people and bears coexist, and what happens when things go wrong. This page-turner will delight any reader with an interest in the natural world, and also anyone who is awed by the power and majesty of the black bear.

KATHERINE AYRES lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where she writes and teaches writing to graduate students in Chatham University's MFA Program. She also lives in Stockbridge, Massachusetts where she writes, gardens, hikes, kayaks, and watches for bears. She is the author of ten books for children and teens, as well as three chapbooks of poetry. She has been honored as a Champion of Literacy, as Outstanding Writer for Children by the Pennsylvania School Library Association. Her picture book, Up, Down, and Around was chosen as the Pennsylvania One Book, Every Young Child, and as the Kansas Reads to Preschool selection. BEAR SEASON (Autumn House Press, 2013) is her first collection of essays.