Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz

Islamabad, Pakistan

The Nuclear Jihadist, the fifth book by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins, is a biography of scientist A.Q. Khan, who led Pakistan's effort to build the bomb. "Getting to the bottom of Khan's motives and methods provided the greatest challenge we'd ever faced as journalists," says Frantz, a senior writer at Condé Nast Portfolio. In fact, Frantz was denied entry to Pakistan, though Collins, his wife, made it in. "The most surprising thing we discovered," she says, "was how often the United States could have stopped Khan in his tracks—and chose not to."

Donald Weber

Sakhalin Island, Russia

When Donald Weber landed on Sakhalin—once an island gulag, now emerging as the epicenter of Russia's oil and gas industry—he was shocked to find it felt like Moscow, where he's based. "This wasn't the backwoods inhabited by lumbermen and oil diggers," says the photographer. "All the girls dressed as they do in Moscow—in thigh-high boots, leather jackets, and with exquisitely coiffed hair." Weber's book Bastard Eden: Our Chernobyl is due out this spring.

James Verini

Sakhalin Island, Russia

Sakhalin, where James Verini went to report on a boom fueled by Russia's massive energy projects, strikes the writer as a paradox. "It's potentially one of the most energy-rich places in the world, yet one of the poorest corners of the Russian Federation." Many Russians, he says, are committed to improving their country despite a distrust of authority (and Westerners). Verini lives in Los Angeles.

Kagan McLeod

Toronto

Kagan McLeod, who contributes regularly to Condé Nast Portfolio and illustrates Daniel Roth's "Gilt Trip," has often found himself scratching his head over the task of creating an artistic image for an economic subject. "Illustrating business stories is always a challenge," he says, "because more often than not the subject matter is something intangible." 

Andrew Rice

Ave Maria, Florida

Andrew Rice reports this month on Ave Maria, a town near Naples that Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan conceived as the site of a Catholic community and university. The project is struggling with both its religious identity and a real estate recession. "What was really surprising was that they'd sold any houses at all," says Rice. "In Florida right now, it's 1929 all over again." 

Alexandra Wolfe

New York

Writing about the executive set's quest for life-extending technologies gave Condé Nast Portfolio staff writer Alexandra Wolfe mixed feelings, especially after she met longevity scientist Ray Kurzweil. "He was taking me to the airport in his Lexus hybrid, weaving in and out of traffic, and I wondered, What is the point of taking hundreds of longevity pills when you still have to drive through rush hour?" For our September issue, Wolfe wrote about an art gallery aboard a yacht.

Luc Sante

Kingston, New York

For this month's photo essay on office parties, writer Luc Sante researched corporate soirees of holidays past to find tales of employees letting loose on the company nickel. "The kind of juicy anecdotes you hope to find about something like this don't make it to the printed page too often," says Sante, whose essay collection Kill All Your Darlings came out in paperback this fall. "People keep them under their hats—for obvious reasons."

Douglas Adesko

San Francisco

To document Jared Kim, the wunderkind creator of WeGame.com, Douglas Adesko, a San Francisco-based photographer, spent a day with his teenage subject at home and at work—and therein lay the visual challenge. "He's a young kid in an empty apartment with white walls who works at a computer all day." The photographer was impressed by Kim's work ethic, energy, and maturity. "He's a striking personality," he says, "a 19-year-old powerhouse."

Andy Grove

Santa Clara, California

Intel co-founder Andy Grove divulges the secret to growth for large companies: "cross-boundary disruption," the corporate strategy of entering an industry outside its original field. (Think Apple's invasion of the music business.) Having taught at Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley, Grove has become a management guru. "What I like about teaching, particularly in the seminar format," he says, "is that I always walk out of a class knowing a lot more than I did when I walked in."

Michael Lewis

Los Angeles

Michael Lewis captures the swagger of the business world at its most inspiring—and its most inept—on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, and on the college gridiron. This month, he introduces us to the unorthodox approach of Blaine Lourd, who invests by ignoring the markets. Lewis was sympathetic: "I came away from Wall Street thinking that anyone picking stocks was basically insane," he says. His latest book, The Blind Side, is now available in paperback.

Jill Greenberg

Los Angeles

In October, Jill Greenberg photographed the chimpanzee who mugs on this month's cover. Greenberg's book Monkey Portraits was recently published in paperback, and her images of bears will be shown in "Ursine," a solo exhibition at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles from mid-December through late January. 

Joe Mathews

Anaheim, California

A political reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Joe Mathews has long been interested in the affairs of Anaheim, California, where a bitter war is raging between the city council and Disneyland, the biggest tourist attraction in town. "I have family ties there," says Mathews. "My grandparents used to take me to Disneyland on Christmas Eve, when the lines for the rides were short." But the spirit in Anaheim today is anything but fun, he says. "The mood is: ready for a fight."

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