Bruce McCandless III grew up next door to the Johnson Space Center during the Apollo and Skylab eras, watching Batman and Buzz Aldrin with equal enthusiasm. He graduated from the Plan II Honors Program of the University of Texas and went on to earn an MA from the University of Reading in England and a JD from the University of Texas School of Law. In addition to Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless II and The First Untethered Flight in Space, Bruce is the author of the novels Sour Lake (2011) and In the Land of Dead Horses (2021). He has also published poems, stories, and essays in a variety of journals, including the Texas Observer, the Seattle Review, the Asian Wall Street Journal, Pleiades, Cold Mountain Review, and Concho River Review. Bruce is an avid runner and biker who spends most of his free time on Central Texas trails. He is a board member of the Austin Public Library Foundation and the Worthy Garden Club—an Oregon-based environmental organization working to plant a million trees in the Pacific Northwest. Bruce and his wife, Pati McCandless, live in Austin.