Keith Dunnavant, the author of four books, including The Missing Ring (Thomas Dunne Books/St.Martin's Press, September 2006), is also the founder, president and owner of Atlanta-based Solovox Publishing.

In a long and distinguished career, the versatile Dunnavant, determined to keep challenging himself and taking risks, has been a nationally prominent sportswriter, a best-selling author, an award-winning magazine writer and editor, and a successful publishing entrepreneur.

A native of Athens, Alabama, Dunnavant got his start as the 14-year-old sports editor of a weekly newspaper in his hometown, where, after talking his way into a job that did not exist, he created a sports section from scatch and became the youngest credentialed reporter in the history of the Southeastern Conference. After working his way up the sports journalism ladder as a correspondent for The Decatur Daily and Huntsville News during his high school years, and holding down another job as a cable TV sports announcer, Dunnavant parlayed his early experience into a full scholarship to the University of Alabama. As a student assistant in the sports information office, he worked closely with the Crimson Tide's football, basketball, baseball and swimming teams while editing and contributing to various university publications.

During his days as a sportswriter for the Birmingham Post-Herald, Dallas Times Herald, Los Angeles Times, Sports inc. magazine, and The National Sports Daily, Frank Deford's revolutionary, New York-based newspaper, Dunnavant developed a reputation as one of the country's leading college football writers. He also covered the National Football League, Major League Baseball, college basketball and various other sports.

Hungry to stretch himself beyond daily sportswriting, Dunnavant walked away from the newspaper business after The National's unfortunate demise to found Solovox Publishing, while simultaneously pursuing a career as a non-fiction author and regular contributor to several magazines, including BusinessWeek, Sport and Atlanta. In 1993, he launched the college football title Dunnavant's Paydirt Illustrated with one of the most innovative business plans ever seen in the publishing industry, creating a licensing program that transformed Paydirt from an idea sketched on a coffee shop napkin into a profitable and journalistically sophisticated brand with a circulation of more than 100,000 across the Southeast.

Widely praised for his expertise in narrative journalism and his skill at creating magazines that connect with readers across different genres, Dunnavant has been the founding editor-in-chief, publisher and owner of four magazines under the Solovox banner. He has also been editor of Adweek Magazines' Special Report, managing editor of Mediaweek, and executive editor of Atlanta magazine. In these senior-level editorial positions, he has directed coverage of everything from presidential politics to suburban sprawl and has also been responsible for several major editorial redesigns.

While achieving success in publication management in both New York and Atlanta, Dunnavant has also carved out a niche as a non-fiction author, exploring the boundaries of biography, sports, history, and criticism. Coach, his biography of Paul "Bear" Bryant (Simon & Schuster, 1996), was widely hailed as the definitive portrait of the Southern icon. The Fifty-Year Seduction (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2004), which showed how television manipulated college football's evolution over a half-century, was praised by The New York Times Book Review as "a fascinating tale of intrigue and betrayal." Seduction has also been used as a textbook at several colleges, including the University of Michigan, where Dunnavant has lectured.

Recognized nationally as an expert on college football and the business of college sports, Dunnavant has been featured as an analyst on various radio and television shows across the country, and has also been utilized as a creative consultant and expert commentator on Bryant documentaries produced by ESPN and CBS Sports.

His writing and editing has been honored with dozens of national and regional awards for journalism excellence, from institutions including the Society of Professional Journalists, the Football Writers' Association of America, the Magazine Association of the Southeast, the City & Regional Magazine Association, the Florida Magazine Association, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the Alabama Sportswriters' Association.

Currently, he is under contract with Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press to write his fifth non-fiction book, scheduled for release in 2008.