Frank Bures is an award-winning writer and essayist. His books include Pushing the River: An Epic Battle, a Lost History, a Near Death, and Other True Canoeing Stories, Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology, and The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World's Strangest Syndromes, which Newsweek called one of the best travel books of the decade.

Apart from giving tours of his hometown, Bures has also tracked down genital thieves in Nigeria, gone on Sasquatch expeditions in the north woods and competed in the World Rock Skipping Championships on the Great Lakes. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and two daughters.