Nicholas VarnerNicholas Varner lived through many of the events he describes in An Unfound Door. Indeed, the book began as a memoir of his late adolescence. During his coaching and teaching career, he mentored international refugees with a wide variety of spiritualbeliefs and his book is heavily influenced by lessons he learned from them. He enjoyed a long career teaching English and math to at-risk high school students and coaching high school and junior college track and cross country in Tucson, Arizona. Several years ago, he and his wife, Kate, and their two dogs-Bjorn, a 130-pound Alaskan Malamute and Betty, a geriatric Australian Cattle Dog-moved to the ponderosa-covered mountains of southern New Mexico, surrounded by Gila National Forest and its ribbons of hiking trails. He began the novel soon after the move and still coaches track privately to a few select athletes, one of whom is the current Afghan national 800-meter record holder. Read More Read Less