Mike Tuggle lived in Cazadero in western Sonoma County from 1981 until his death in 2017. He was the recipient of a Sonoma Community Foundation Award in poetry, a Dickens Award in fiction, and the Oberon Poetry Prize. He is the author of Cazadero Poems, a chapbook with the poet Susan Kennedy, and two full-length collections, Absolute Elsewhere and The Singing Itself. He was the poet laureate of Sonoma County for 2008–2009.