biography

CHRISTOPHER WHITE is a writer and naturalist, specializing in narrative nonfiction—stories based in fact and on true lives. Through magazine articles and three books, he has covered subjects ranging from endangered wildlife and ecology to maritime history and overfishing. He has a passion for sailing, diving, and mountaineering—with ascents on three continents.

“Men who take their livings from the sea have their own language to reinforce kinship and keep strangers at bay. Only rarely is an outsider accepted into their inner circle, and then only when he knows how to listen and is willing to work. Even more rarely does such an adopted son capture the cadenced ebb and flow of watermen’s speech. Herman Melville did it for New England whalers: Christopher White has now done it for the oystermen of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Just as Melville documented something greater than a whale hunt, White’s account helps us understand how much all our lives will be diminished when the last oyster drudger sailed in from the Chesapeake… Skipjack is a masterpiece.” - George Reiger, Wanderer on My Native Shore

Early in his career, Chris was a staff biologist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, specializing in maritime issues. He also served as Executive Director of the Mare Nostrum Foundation, a Belgium-based ocean policy organization. Since then, he has written three books on the Chesapeake Bay, as well as articles about science and natural history for National Geographic and other magazines. He has a degree in biology from Princeton University.

As a filmmaker, Chris served as a producer in development for an eight-part television documentary on man’s relationship with the sea, The Blue Revolution, which won a CINE Golden Eagle. It was broadcast on Discovery Channel and many networks around the world, including NHK-Japan, ABC-Australia, and TF1-France.

Chris has lectured at many local venues around the Chesapeake and has served as a presenter and panelist at the Chesapeake Writers Conference. For more than a decade, Chris has been a deckhand at the annual skipjack races at Deal Island, Maryland. His diving expeditions have taken him to the Caribbean, Mediterranean, and the Great Barrier Reef (Australia). An avid mountaineer, he has climbed Mr. Rainier, Grand Teton, Glacier Peak, Mont Blanc, and the Matterhorn, among other summits.