Jeff Golden

UNAFRAID is Jeff Golden’s fourth book and second novel.

Jeff attended Harvard University as a National Scholar during the height of the Vietnam War and decided to swap the Ivy Halls for 20 acres in the backwoods of Oregon and a used chainsaw. He chronicled that journey in the book Watermelon Summer (Lippincott & Co, 1971). After a decade building homes, guiding whitewater river trips, and working in the forests of the Cascade Mountains, Jeff dropped back in to earn a Masters in Communications degree from Stanford University.

Jeff has spent the last 25 years in politics, broadcasting and editorial journalism. His political career includes service as a Jackson County (OR) Commissioner, Chief of Staff to the Oregon Senate President, and Environmental Policy aide to the City of Portland. During those years he wrote Forest Blood (Wellstone Books, 1998), the pre-eminent novel of the Northwest timber wars. His stand for responsible forestry made him the target of an unsuccessful recall campaign financed by national timber corporations, and earned him the first nomination ever from the state of Oregon for the JFK Profile in Courage Award, which is one experience that directly informed the writing of Unafraid.