Stephen Rutt is a birder, naturalist, freelance feature writer and book reviewer whose work has appeared in EarthLines Magazine, Zoomorphic, The Harrier, Surfbirds, BirdGuides and the East Anglian Daily Times. In 2016 he escaped his hectic, anxiety-inducing life in London to spend seven months at the bird observatory on North Ronaldsay, the most northerly island in the Orkney archipelago, where this book was born. He currently lives in Dumfries.

"The writing lures you in, making you feel that you too might benefit from venturing out in inclement weather, just on the off-chance of seeing something remarkable on the wing to lift your spirits" - The National ; "A beautifully illuminating portrait of lives lived largely on the wing and at sea . . . In this intimate guide to the wild beauty and complexity of seabirds, Stephen Rutt has written a powerful chronicle of resilience and fragility' -- Julian Hoffman, author of Irreplaceable and The Small Heart of Things ; "An evocative book ... I could taste the salt on my lips and smell the perfume of storm petrels. The Seafarers is a pelagic poem about the birds that exist at the coastal edges of our islands and consciousness. The stories of these hardy birds entwine seamlessly with Stephen Rutt's personal journey to form a narrative as natural and flowing as the passage of shearwater along the face of Atlantic rollers" -- Jon Dunn, author of Orchid Summer ; "An arrestingly vivid turn of phrase... An accomplished debut from an exciting new voice in Nature writing." -- The Countryman Magazine ; "5*... One of those great joys of a book ... I look forward to reading the next book from this author, although I acknowledge that he has set his own bar very high" - Tonto Williams Electronic Scrapbook ; "Writes as beautifully about Shetland as he does about seabirds" - Sally Huband, raingeeseandselkies.blogspot.com"