Alex Heard is the Editorial Director of Outside magazine and has also edited and written for The New York Times Magazine, Wired, The New Republic, Slate, and many other publications. Heard's first book is APOCALYPSE PRETTY SOON: TRAVELS IN END-TIME AMERICA, a fascinating and sometimes frightening trip into the realm of America’s most intensely religious and political believers.

He is currently working on THE EYES OF WILLIE MCGEE, the gripping story of the execution of a black man accused of raping a white woman in the American South that became an international incident at the height of the Cold War when the Communist Party funded McGee’s defense. Heard, who is from Mississippi, will return there to uncover the truth about how that part of the world has changed – and how it hasn’t – and will bring it to life much as John Berendt did with Savannah in MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL.