Richard Modlin is a professor emeritus of the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the author of a number of published books, articles, and short stories. His novel Newfound Freedom was a finalist for the Foreword Reviews BOTYA in General Fiction, and his 2008 memoir Chasing Wings – Birding Exploits and Encounters was a finalist in the Nature Writing category.

Modlin earned his PhD in marine ecology from the University of Connecticut and has several degrees in the biological sciences. Having minored in English at the University of Wisconsin, he has taken part in the Iowa Summer Writers Program and is the former President of the Alabama Writers Conclave, member of the Tennessee Mountain Writers, on the board of the Huntsville Literary Association, and member of the Huntsville Photographic Society.