Charles Wilkins

For writer and magazine journalist Charles Wilkins, research has no limits. Among his dozen books are Walk to New York, which chronicles his 2,200 km journey—on foot—from Thunder Bay to Manhattan, and A Wilderness Called Home, which features Canadians coast to coast whose lives connect with the wild. In The Circus at the Edge of the Earth, shortlisted for the Rogers/Viacom Non-Fiction Prize, he travels with the Great Wallenda Circus. His new book, In the Land of Long Fingernails (Penguin), is a hilarious memoir of his stint as a grave-digger. Charles Wilkins lives in Thunder Bay with his wife and three children.

Nooner (Sept 26), Mainstage (Sept 26)