Nugent is an American writer and explorer. His work takes inventory of the more neglected shelves in the communal warehouse,those areas riddled with deep shadows due to stock, especially cultures and traditions, gone missing and about to go missing. He has published numerous newspaper and magazine stories, along with three books: THE SEARCH FOR THE PINK-HEADED DUCK (Houghton-Mifflin, 1991); DRUMS ALONG THE CONGO (Houghton-Mifflin, 1993); and DOWN AT THE DOCKS (Pantheon, 2009).Nugent was born in New York. After graduating from Williams College(1975), he went to sea aboard freighters and sailboats. He made his bones, though, in 1976, the youngest American competitor in the Observer Singlehanded Trans-Atlantic Race. Although he finished out of the money, he stayed in the game and went on to make three more solo Atlantic crossings. His fifth attempt ended halfway,when he was shipwrecked by a rogue wave. He was rescued five days later and twenty-eight pounds lighter.Not wanting to swim anymore, Nugent took to field research. He mounted one man expeditions in search of remnants from an earlier era, like the Pink-Headed Duck of India or Mokele-Mbembe, the bronto of the Congo. His travels took him down great rivers (Nile , Sobat, Uele/Ubangi, Sangha,Congo,and Brahmaputra),through the clouds (into the Himalayas--Nepal, Bhutan,Tibet, China, Sikkim) across deserts (Africa and MidEast), and through jungles (Africa and S. America). His first two books, DRUMS ALONG THE CONGO and THE SEARCH FOR THE PINK-HEADED DUCK, document part of his journey. In 1992, Nugent switched gears and became a full time journalist, his beat: the nightmare; his quest: those missing elements allowing it to prosper.For the next ten years,as a freelancer and staff writer for Spin Magazine, he tracked nitwit generals and their lousy wars in Europe, Asia and Africa. Along the way, he became intimate with the prophets of intolerance and bore witness to the insanity of killing fields the size of Texas. Some of his stories remain standards, including his reports from inside the IRA and his dispatches (1994-95)from the wheelhouse of radical Islam while the officer corps drew the maps for the course ahead. After finishing an assignment in Iran/Iraq in 2002, Nugent exited the gloom, refocused on America and gathered notes for his book, DOWN AT THE DOCKS. A new book is underway