Dugard, Martin

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Dugard, Martin

PERSONAL: Married; children: three sons. Education: Graduated from college, 1986.

ADDRESSES: Home—Orange County, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Little, Brown&Co., 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Involved in corporate marketing, c. 1986–93.

AWARDS, HONORS: Katie Award, Dallas Area Press Club, best magazine sports story, 1997.

WRITINGS:

On the Edge: Four True Stories of Extreme Outdoor Sports Adventure, Bantam (New York, NY), 1995.

In-line Skating Made Easy: A Manual for Beginners with Tips for the Experienced, Globe Pequot Press (Old Saybrook, CT), 1996.

Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, Ragged Mountain Press (Camden, ME), 1998.

Knockdown: The Harrowing True Account of a Yacht Race Turned Deadly, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Mark Burnett) Survivor: The Ultimate Game: The Official Companion to the CBS Television Show, TV Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Farther than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook, Pocket Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2003.

The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, including Accounts of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, Hurricane, and Discovery, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 2005.

Also author of the screenplays Be True and The Last Raid. Contributor to periodicals, including Competitor, ESPN: The Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Inside Sports-America, Outside, and Sports Illustrated.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Chasing Lance, about the 2005 Tour de France.

SIDELIGHTS: Martin Dugard has produced books on sports and physical activities, as well as historical profiles of adventurers. His book On the Edge: Four True Stories of Extreme Outdoor Sports Adventure, for example, features tales of sporting adventures gone horribly awry. On the Edge "should be a winner with readers who like sports on the edge," declared Patrick Jones in Kliatt. Dugard's In-line Skating Made Easy: A Manual for Beginners with Tips for the Experienced is a primer for people learning to in-line skate and gives advice for skaters who want to improve their skills. It covers safety equipment, foot positions, and skating techniques, and its illustrations provide examples of how to put the tips into action. Another Dugard book, Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, discusses his participation in the Raid Gauloises, a grueling race through mountains and rainforests. Knockdown: The Harrowing True Account of a Yacht Race Turned Deadly recounts the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race, which resulted in the death of six sailors in a torrential storm. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that "Dugard pauses to give lay readers welcome explications of sailing jargon, as well as elementary lessons in the geometry—or perhaps it's really alchemy—of waveforms."

Dugard turns his attention to history in Farther than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook, which probes the famous explorer's life, from his roots as a poor farm boy through his career in the British Royal Navy. "Well researched, with information from Cook's own journals, this fast-paced book brings to life the English explorer," attested a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. Margaret Flanagan, writing in Booklist, called the book a "stirring chronicle," adding that the author "paints an intriguing portrait of an extraordinary man."

In his book Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone, Dugard continues to mix history and adventure, providing an in-depth historical account of Henry Morton Stanley's search in the wilds of Africa for David Livingstone and their eventual meeting. Writing on the BookReporter.com Web site, Robert Finn observed that the author "tells the whole story in a work of historical recreation that reads like an adventure novel." Finn went on to write: "He puts the tale in its historical setting, gives rounded pictures of the two men and a cast of fascinating supporting players, and leaves the reader with a strong sense of the incredible difficulties both men overcame on their separate roads to the village of Ujiji." "Fine entertainment for adventure buffs," according to one Kirkus Reviews contributor, the book is "solidly researched and fluently told."

Dugard provides a history of Columbus's harrowing fourth, and final, trip to the New World in the book The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, including Accounts of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, Hurricane, and Discovery. As told by the author, the voyage included attacks by primitive natives, mutinies, and eventually a shipwreck that left Columbus and his crew in Jamaica for a year. Calling the historical account a "vivid narrative," a Kirkus Reviews contributor commented that the author offers "plenty to digest for the history-minded reader who enjoys a bracing story of courage and adventure on the uncharted high seas." Margaret Atwater-Singer, writing in the Library Journal, noted that the author's rendition of the story is "so compelling, that it is bound to capture the imagination of readers."

A longtime contributor of sports-related stories to various magazines, Dugard has participated in his own adventures, as well, including setting a global circum-navigation record. Flying aboard a French Concorde jet, he left New York City, traveled around the world, and returned to New York City in just thirty-one hours and twenty-eight minutes.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 1998, Brenda Barrera, review of Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, p. 892; June 1, 2001, Margaret Flanagan, review of Farther than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook, p. 1828; June 1, 2003, Kristine Huntley, review of Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone, p. 1731.

Dallas Morning News, October 17, 2003, Larry Bleiberg, review of Into Africa.

Fort Worth Star Telegram, June 12, 2005, Jim Frisinger, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition, including Accounts of Swordfight, Mutiny, Shipwreck, Gold, War, Hurricane, and Discovery.

Geographical, April, 2004, Nick Smith, review of Into Africa, p. 87.

Hollywood Reporter, April 14, 2003, Gregory McNamee, review of Into Africa, p. 11.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2003, review of Into Africa, p. 202; April 15, 2005, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus, p. 458.

Kliatt, September, 1995, Patrick Jones, review of On the Edge: Four True Stories of Extreme Outdoor Sports Adventure, p. 46; November, 2002, Raymond L. Puffer, review of Farther than Any Man, p. 30; January, 2004, Sunnie Grant, review of Into Africa, p. 53.

Library Journal, July, 2001, Stanley L. Itkin, review of Farther than Any Man, p. 100; March 1, 2003, Margaret Atwater-Singer, review of Into Africa, p. 98; May 15, 2005, Margaret Atwater-Singer, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus, p. 127.

Philadelphia Inquirer, July 10, 2005, Steve Weinberg, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 12, 2005, Monika Kugemann, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus.

Publishers Weekly, January 12, 1998, review of Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth, p. 53; August 9, 1999, review of Knockdown: The Harrowing True Account of a Yacht Race Turned Deadly, p. 334; May 28, 2001, review of Farther than Any Man, p. 66; February 17, 2003, review of Into Africa, p. 63; March 21, 2005, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus, p. 44.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 26, 2005, Ben Cosgrove, review of The Last Voyage of Columbus, p. C1.

School Library Journal, November, 2003, Kathy Tewell, review of Into Africa, p. 172.