Craig McLaughlin is an award-winning journalist, editor and memoirist, as well as a professional storyteller, poet and public speaker from Santa Cruz, California. He is the author of a memoir based on his storytelling performances, Passing on Curves: While Death Rides Shotgun, and co-author of a graduate-level textbook, Health Policy Analysis: An Interdisciplinary Approach. He is the former director of the Washington State Board of Health and has also served as a manager in higher education and media, as an organizational consultant for media organizations, and as a communications consultant and editor for foundations and state agencies. Craig is certified as a hypnotherapist and a Hakomi practitioner, and had significant training and experience as a mediator.