Daniel James Brown

Daniel James Brown is The New York Times bestselling author of "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics," now being made into a movie directed by George Clooney and Grant Heslov.

Brown's other books include "Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894," which traces the personal stories and social, economic, and environmental causes of the Great Hinkley Fire, "The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride," which follows the footsteps of Sarah Graves, a young bride who left her home in Illinois in the spring of 1846, only to become one of a handful of the ill-fated Donner Party members who attempted to hike out of the Sierra Nevada to save herself and her family, and his second New York Times bestseller, "Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II," a gripping World War II saga of patriotism, highlighting the contributions and sacrifices that Japanese immigrants and their American-born children made for the sake of the nation.

The author grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended the University of California at Berkeley. He taught writing at San Jose State University and Stanford before becoming a technical writer and editor, first in Silicon Valley and later at Microsoft. He now writes narrative nonfiction books full time. His primary interest as a writer is in bringing compelling historical events to life as vividly and accurately as he can.

He lives in the country outside of Seattle, Washington with his wife, two daughters, and an assortment of cats, dogs, chickens, and honeybees. When he is not writing, he is likely to be birding, gardening, fly fishing, reading American history, or chasing bears away from the bee hives.