Michael Brownstein is a poet and the author of three novels: Country Cousins, Self-Reliance, and The Touch. He has taught literature and writing at the University of Colorado, Naropa Institute and Columbia University. As a result of his involvement in the anti-globalization movement he wrote World on Fire, from which he has read widely at conferences and universities, including at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in South Africa and the World Social Forum in Brazil. He has trained in core shamanism with Michael Harner as well as with indigenous healers in South America.