Maria Coffey

Maria Coffey is an internationally published and award-winning author of thirteen books. Her first book, Fragile Edge: Loss on Everest, won two prizes in Italy including the 2002 ITAS Prize for Mountain Literature; Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow won the Banff Mountain Film Festival Literature Prize in 2003 and a National Book Award in 2004. For these titles, along with Explorers of the Infinite (2008) Maria was awarded the 2009 American Alpine Club H. Adams Carter Literary Award. Maria has also written extensively about her worldwide travels and expeditions with her husband Dag Goering, who is a veterinarian and photographer. Maria’s most recent book: Instead: Navigating the Adventures of a Childfree Life won the Adventure Travel Prize at the 2023 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. Maria and Dag are co-founders of www.hiddenplaces.net, a boutique adventure travel company which is a three times winner of National Geographic Traveler’s 50 Tours of a Lifetime Award. Through the conservation branch of Hidden Places, they also run special trips to raise funds and awareness for endangered species. They are based in British Columbia and in Catalonia.