ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alan Brennert was born in Englewood, New Jersey, to Herbert E. Brennert, an aviation writer, and Almyra E. Brennert, an apartment rentals manager. Since 1973 he has lived in Southern California, where he received a B.A. in English from California State University at Long Beach and did graduate work in screenwriting at UCLA.

In addition to novels, he has written short stories, teleplays, screenplays, and the libretto of a stage musical, Weird Romance, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by David Spencer. He has developed screenplays for major studios as well as miniseries, pilots, and television movies, and earned an Emmy Award for his work as a writer-producer on the television series L.A. Law. His short story “Ma Qui” was honored with a Nebula Award in 1992.

His novel Moloka'i, about the forced segregation of leprosy patients to the settlement of Kalaupapa in Hawai'i, won praise from The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and Publishers Weekly, and became a national bestseller in paperback as well as a favorite selection of reading groups across the country. His most recent novel, Honolulu, was named one of the Best Books of 2009 by The Washington Post.

He is currently at work on a new historical novel.