Mike is a writer and photographer born in Florida as a first-generation American to Austrian and South African parents. He contributes regularly to The New York Times, The Bitter Southerner, and The Surfer's Journal among others, and writes a monthly column for Void magazine. Over the past few years, he was nominated for the Smithsonian’s Artist Research Fellowship, a recipient of the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Fellowship, and an artist-in-residence at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. In 2018, he began his first book about a traumatic brain injury's effect on his family and the history of the injury's treatment in America as a fellow at the Key West Literary Seminar in Florida. This year, he was awarded a grant by Florida's Division of Cultural Affairs and a fellowship from the University of Florida. Most recently, he won a James Beard Award in Profile Writing for his feature "The Short & Brilliant Life of Ernest Matthew Mickler." He lives in his hometown, Sarasota, Florida along the Gulf of Mexico.