Shaun Bailey was born in Flint, Michigan, where boomtowns had a big influence on him. Finding little work, he left these to pursue writing in the style of his role model, John Steinbeck. This migration, together with his career writing about estuaries, led him to pen the novel "Mud Puddlers"; a book about hard-working migrants altering the course of arguably the grandest river of them all: the Colorado.

Bailey lives in Michigan with his wife and two children. He has yet to lay eyes on the Hoover Dam, though he does marvel at its grandeur. What he doesn't marvel at are small, obsolete dams. That's why he is donating five percent of this book's profits to American Rivers. This way, every reader will help waterways flow freely to the sea once again.