Brianna Madia is a writer, adventurer, and desert-dweller. For the last several years, she and her now three pups Bucket, Dagwood, and Birdie call her big orange van, Bertha, home. An avid climber, canyoneer, mountain biker, kayaker, and explorer, Brianna believes in moving against the grain, embracing her true self, and trying all the things that scare you.
""A searing metamorphosis. A book for those who know that to stay at the surface is to drown. It takes a brave soul to articulate, not the build-up of the heroine’s glorious fire, nor her rise from the ashes, but the actual sparring with flames, the soot-covered rumble in the cinders of herself. Bri is that soul, and her writing is a salve for those who are burning to be free."" — Steph Jagger, author of Unbound and Everything Left to Remember ""An intimate memoir of shattering pain."" — Kirkus Reviews ""Very few memoirs go as deep and honest as Madia’s Never Leave the Dog’s Behind, a brave and inspiring account of a young woman’s life being fired in a desert kiln. Amid the unrefined edges of canyon rock and unflinching sun, Madia somehow manages to mend a shattered heart via the remarkable bond she shares with her four-legged companions. I haven’t enjoyed a memoir this much since Wild."" — Carol Dunbar, award-winning author of The Net Beneath Us ""A deeply human tale of primal survival."" — Source Weekly