About the Authors

Beth Manyor Young in the office

Beth Maynor Young is an accomplished conservation photographer who has spent much of her life chronicling the natural beauty and remnant wild places of the contemporary South. In 1990, she founded Cahaba River Publishing, a conservation-motivated firm that supports her life’s passion—nature and landscape photography.

Today, Beth’s photographs give us a moving vision of the natural world and speak quietly yet deeply of our need to preserve the South’s unique environmental heritage. Beth’s hope is that her images will remind us of the irreplaceable value of these unique natural places and stimulate a desire for action on their behalf.

Beth’s conservation photography is part of many private and corporate art collections across the country. Her renown and popularity is a testament to the importance of environmental issues and the caliber of her photography.

Todd Keith on the Black Water River

A native of Alabama, writer/editor Todd Keith has written The Rivers of Alabama, and Cahaba: A Gift for Generations, two books of essays focusing on the rivers of his native state, as well as Old Cahawba, a history of Alabama’s first state capital. In 2008 he wrote and edited a custom published book, Reflections 50, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Thompson Tractor, one of the country’s largest Caterpillar dealers. Thunder Bay Press published his most recent book, Birmingham Then and Now, a look at the architectural history of his hometown, in April 2009.

After completing an MA in English and teaching freshman literature in the early 1990s, Todd taught English in Czechoslovakia, which led to an interest in travel writing. He has produced articles for magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, Coastal Living, Robb Report, and others, as well as edited SweetTea Journal, a custom publishing title about Northwest Florida produced by Southern Living magazine’s custom publishing arm. A senior contributor with Executive Traveler magazine, he has covered diverse destinations such as Iceland, Grenada, Sweden, Argentina, South Africa, Switzerland, Mongolia, Spain, and others.

His latest endeavor is Thicket, a new lifestyle magazine about his home state that he recently launched with several partners. He is senior editor. Todd lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, Julie, and two sons, Collins and Fletcher.