Michael Scott Moore

Freelancer Michael Scott Moore has edited and written for Spiegel Online in Germany, where he followed the trial of 10 Somali pirates in Hamburg. He originated the European Dispatch column for Miller-McCune magazine and in 2009 wrote a series of columns on US and EU counter-piracy measures from the Horn of Africa.

Born in California, he's the author of a comic novel called Too Much of Nothing as well as Sweetness and Blood, a travel book about the spread of surfing to odd corners of the world. The travel book was named one of the best titles of 2010 by The Economist, and to write it Mike traipsed through Indonesia, Morocco, Cuba, Israel, and even surfed the Gaza Strip.

He was a 2006-07 Fulbright journalist in Berlin. He helped write an American documentary on honor killings, Two Sides of the Moon. He has written about politics and travel for The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The Los Angeles Times.