Roland Smith

Roland Smith is an American author of young-adult and children's fiction, born in 1951 in Portland, Oregon, and a graduate of Portland State University. Before writing, he spent about twenty years as a zookeeper at the Oregon Zoo and Point Defiance Zoo, and took part in wildlife rescue after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He began with nonfiction wildlife titles before turning to fiction with Thunder Cave, and is best known for the Cryptid Hunters trilogy—Cryptid Hunters, Tentacles, and Chupacabra—which follows twins investigating cryptozoological mysteries after their parents vanish. His novel Peak won the National Outdoor Book Award in the children's category, and several of his books have won state Book of the Year honors across Colorado, Nevada, South Carolina, Florida, and Oregon.