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| BIOGRAPHY |
Alan Brennert was born in Englewood, New Jersey, and grew up in the towns of Cliffside Park, Palisades Park, Edgewater, and Haledon. 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 Film School.
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. Produced in 1992 by the WPA Theatre in New York, it has since been licensed for more than a hundred regional, high school, and college productions. A cast album was released by Columbia Records in 1993. |
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His work as a writer-producer for the television series L.A. Law earned him an Emmy Award in 1991. He has been nominated for an Emmy on two other occasions, once for a Golden Globe Award, and (three times) for the Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Teleplay of the Year. He received a People's Choice Award for L.A. Law, and his short story "Ma Qui" was honored with a Nebula Award in 1992.
He has developed screenplays for major studios, as well as miniseries, pilots, and television movies. "But in television and film," he says, "sometimes your best work is never seen." In 1999 he spent six months writing a four-hour miniseries for NBC and Kevin Costner's Tig Productions, based on David Marion Wilkinson's epic novel Not Between Brothers, about the founding of Texas. When the network opted not to produce it, Alan decided he needed to write something that people would get to see, and the result was Moloka'i.
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. It was also a 2012 One Book, One San Diego selection. His next novel, Honolulu, was also well received—the San Francisco Chronicle called it “a moving, multilayered epic by a master of historical fiction” and The Washington Post named it one of the Best Books of 2009—and has also become a popular book club selection.
His new novel, Palisades Park, is a return to his roots. A historical and family saga set at the legendary Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey, Alan calls it “a love letter to a cherished part of my childhood.”
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| News: |
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Alan has sold his new novel-in-progress, DAUGHTER OF MOLOKA'I, to St. Martin's Press. You can read his announcement here. |
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Copyright © 2013 Alan Brennert. All rights reserved |
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