A Tea Pot that never empties, an Ice Pick that freezes what it touches, an Ember that burns without end—Clover Elkin lives in a land of marvels. She dreams of collecting wondrous oddities as her dead mother did before her, but when her father is killed defending her from lawless men, his last words send her on a quest to protect the most necessary oddity, one that could help start a war . . . or end it.
As a child, Eli Brown's imagination was set ablaze by the mythologies of the world. He was particularly interested in magical objects, such as Odysseus's bag of wind, Arjuna's Bow, Bilbo's ring, and Jack's beans.
His debut middle-grade novel, ODDITY, is a gritty alternate historical fantasy. It features a Pistol that cannot miss, a Tea Pot containing an ocean of chamomile, and a thirteen-year-old surgeon’s daughter in search of dangerous family secrets.
Brown's culinary pirate novel, CINNAMON AND GUNPOWDER, was a finalist for the California Book Award, a San Francisco Public Library One-City One-Book selection, and an NPR Book Review Staff Pick.
Brown’s first novel, THE GREAT DAYS (Boaz Publications), won the Fabri Prize for Literature. Publishers Weekly called it “…a harrowing, convincing look into the heart of cult life that should linger with readers.”
In addition to writing, Brown has worked as a groundskeeper, a massage therapist, and, most recently, a stay-at-home dad. Because he has not (yet) found an invisibility ring, Brown has contented himself with the mundane magics of gardening and fermentation. Just yesterday he turned an iffy pint of milk into honey-sage yogurt.
A Yaddo fellow and featured reader at Litquake, Brown earned his MFA from Mills college. He lives with his family in Northern California where the squirrels bury acorns in his garden and cats bury worse.