Peter J. Usher is the author of two biographies of Canadian airmen in the Second World War, and is currently working on two books on similar themes.  He was inspired to write by the letters and diaries of those in his family who served in the RCAF, mostly in Bomber Command.  Supplemented by years of archival research and site visits in Canada, Britain, and Europe, he grounds his books in a deep appreciation of the social, cultural, and military circumstances of their time.  He is the author of several related scholarly articles including an entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (complete but awaiting translation).

Peter, born in Montreal, is a geographer with graduate degrees from McGill and the University of British Columbia.  His work in the North began on a survey crew in northern Ontario, and soon came to focus on Indigenous land rights and the environmental impact of industrial resource extraction, spanning the North from Labrador to Alaska.  He lived in the Western Arctic for several years.  He authored numerous reports and scholarly articles, and served on environmental assessment panels and on Indigenous co-management bodies. 

He and his wife live on their hundred-acre woodlot in Lanark County, Ontario.  He enjoys snowshoeing in winter, working in the bush in spring and fall, and exploring the rural roads on his bicycle in summer.