Margaret Knox is the editor and bureau chief of the team that produces articles and books under the byline “Dan Baum.” A former reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Margaret opened The Africa Bureau, a freelance news bureau in Harare, Zimbabwe, with her husband Dan Baum in early 1987. After three years, they moved to Missoula, Montana, to continue as freelance reporters. When their daughter, Rosa, was born in 1993, Margaret and Dan decided to divide the work: Dan would travel, interview, and write first drafts, and Margaret would direct the research and edit the work. (They use one byline because modern non-fiction often requires a personal voice.)

Together, they have produced three books: Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure (1994); Citizen Coors: An American Dynasty (1997); and Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans (2009); as well as many articles for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Wired and others. Margaret is also a freelance editor of fiction and non-fiction books.