John Brown (American author) John Brown (American author) John D. Brown is an American author who writes thrillers and epic fantasy. Brown was born in Utah and spent many years working in the family floral and nursery business. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Netherlands and Belgium and graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and a master's degree in Accountancy. After college Brown worked as a business consultant and instructor in Livermore, California and Westerville, Ohio. He current lives in Laketown, Utah, a ranching environment that inspired
John Steinbeck Steinbeck's boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. Fixed menu lunches are served Monday through Saturday, and the house is open for tours on Sunday afternoons during the summer. The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away at 1 Main Street is the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to a single author. Dana Gioia (chair of the National Endowment for the Arts) told an audience at the center, "This is really the best modern literary shrine in the country, and I've seen them all." Its "Steinbeckiana"