PRINCIPALS:

MIKE MCKENNA’S passions are mountain sports, spending time with his wife and son, and beer—and as luck would have it, he often gets to enjoy all three at the same time. Since finally getting the guts to send out his writing at the tender age of thirty, Mike’s work has regularly appeared in publications from coast to coast, earning him numerous awards. In 2004, Mike was named  “Favorite Poet” by New Hampshire’s Portsmouth Herald; from 2005 thru 2008 he has won Phil Ford Humor Awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of California (OWAC), including taking first place for an Eastside Magazine article entitled, In Search of Golden Trout; in 2008 OWAC also awarded him Best Magazine Feature for his Eastside Mag article, The Horse Whisperer of the High Sierra; and in 2007, Mike earned his favorite writing award so far, an honorary Bobble-head Tiki Doll from the Mammoth Mountain Race Department for a newspaper article he wrote called Ski Like A Girl.

STACY CORLESS has been exploring the Eastside in words and on foot for a decade. From her start as a staff writer for the Mammoth Times to a more recent turn as a contributing editor of Mammoth Monthly magazine, Stacy has covered local events, personalities and politics in depth. Her love of the Eastern Sierra and its characters keeps her inspired, and very busy.

In addition to magazine and newspaper work, Stacy co-authored the ninth and seventh editions of Sierra North and Sierra South (Wilderness Press). She’s out on the Eastside daily—on and off the trail—running, hiking, backpacking, skiing and occasionally peakbagging with a pack of active friends and two herding dogs. When not outside, she can often be found onstage or behind the scenes as a member of Sierra Classic Theatre.

All that adds up to plenty of material, some of which garnered awards from the Outdoor Writers Association of California in 2006 (Best Magazine Feature and the Phil Ford Humor Award).

NILS DAVIS is our resident visual anal retentive. Not that he’s addicted to all things organized—quite the contrary; only that he likes things to be presented cleanly and clearly, mostly because he doesn’t like to read. Just kidding.

Nils grew up with a mother for an artist, married an artist whose mother is a professional artist and with whom (not the mother) he created Nils Davis Design & Production, an advertising and graphic design company based in Bishop. He and his wife Keri have been living on the Eastside since 2001 with their cats Cosmo and Ace.

In addition to designing Eastside, Nils is an avid climber and has climbed first ascents all over the world, including Pakistan, Peru, Canada, and of course, the Sierra Nevada. He has climbed the 3,000-foot face of El Capitan and the 2,000 foot face of Half Dome all in the same day. He forever endeavors (with little success) to not take himself too seriously.