Brad Matsen has been writing books, documentary films scripts and magazine articles for thirty years. His latest book is Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss (Pantheon, April 2005), the story of William Beebe, Otis Barton, and their courageous Bathysphere expeditions from 1930 - 1934. He is also the author of the introduction to Rapture of the Deep, the story of Ray Troll (University of California Press, 2004), and Go Wild In New York City (National Geographic Books, 2005), a book about urban ecology for kids.

Brad also wrote Raptors, Fossils, Fins and Fangs; Planet Ocean: A Story of Life, the Sea and Dancing to the Fossil Record and Shocking Fish Tales (all with Ray); The Incredible Ocean Adventure series; Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People; Northwest Coast: Essays on the Territory Between the Columbia River and Cook Inlet; and Deep Sea Fishing.

He was a creative producer and writer for the Sea Studios/National Geographic television series, The Shape of Life on evolution, and The Land is Yours on the Native American civil rights movement in Alaska, and Alaska and the Pacific War on the Japanese occupation of the Aleutian Islands.

His articles & photos have appeared in Audubon, Mother Jones, Oceans, WoodenBoat, Whole Earth Review, Alaska and dozens of other magazines and newspapers. His magazine package in Mother Jones with Ray, "Blues in the Key of Sea," earned the magazine the Censored Project's highest honors in 1994, and he has won several other major awards. He has also worked as a charter pilot, commercial fisherman and merchant seaman and spent most of his life in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. He lives in Seattle and New York.