Daniel James Brown

Brown grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and later studied English literature at Berkeley. He earned an M.A. in English from UCLA, and afterwards taught at San Jose State University and Stanford University. After many years of teaching, Brown published his first book, Under a Flaming Sky: the Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 (2006). The book was a success, and enabled Brown to write a second, The Indifferent Stars Above (2009), about the life of Sarah Graves, a member of the Donner Party. Brown now writes full-time and lives in Seattle, Washington.