William deBuys is a writer and conservationist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a professor of documentary studies at the College of Santa Fe and the author of Enchantment and Exploitation (University of New Mexico Press, 1985) and River of Traps: A New Mexico Mountain Life (Trinity University Press, paperback edition 2007; University of New Mexico Press, 1990), coauthored with Alex Harris, which was a finalist for the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1990.

DeBuys’s other books are Salt Dreams: Land and Water in Low-Down California (University of New Mexico Press, 1999), which received a Western States Book Award, and Seeing Things Whole: The Essential John Wesley Powell (Shearwater/Island Press, 2001). His shorter work has appeared in many publications, including Story, Northern Lights, and the New York Times Book Review.