Duff Brenna is the author of six novels, including The Book of Mamie (University of Iowa Press, 1989), which won the Associated Writing Programs Award (AWP). His other novels are The Holy Book of the Beard (Doubleday/Nan Talese 1996); Too Cool (Doubleday/ Nan Talese, 1998), a New York Times Notable Book; The Altar of the Body (Picador USA, 2001), which won the Favorite Book of the Year Award from South Florida Sun Sentinel and a San Diego Writers Prize from the San Diego Writers Association; and The Willow Man (Wykin de Worde, 2005); The Law of Falling Bodies (Hopewell Publication, 2007). His books have been translated into German, Dutch, Finnish, Danish, Hebrew and Japanese.

Brenna is a recipient of an National Endowment of the Arts grant, Milwaukee Magazine’s Fiction Award for the short story “Cristobell”, and a Pushcart Honorable Mention for the first chapter of The Altar of the Body. His work has appeared in several magazines and literary journals, including Cream City Review, Sou’wester, the Madison Review, the Northern Review, The Nebraska Review, The Literary Review, and Web del Sol.

An adolescent rebel, and self-described “juvenile delinquent,” Brenna is an Army veteran, whose life took a once unimagined turn for the positive due to his persistence, commitment, and love of reading and writing.

A Minnesota native, Brenna once tried his hand at owning and running a Wisconsin dairy farm. He is currently a free-lance writer living in Sun City, CA.