Brooks Hansen

My blogs

About me

Introduction Born in NYC in 1965, Brooks Hansen is a fiction writer, screenwriter, essayist, speaker, and teacher. Known principally for his historical fiction, he has authored nine titles to date, including The Monsters of St. Helena, Perlman’s Ordeal, Boone and The Chess Garden, all of which were New York Times Notable Books. The Chess Garden was also a PW Best Book of the Year selection. He has written two novels for Young Readers, Caesar’s Antlers, and Beastie, both of which he illustrated. In 2009, he released a memoir, The Brotherhood of Joseph, and in 2005 received a Guggenheim Fellowship for John the Baptizer, which was published in 2009 by Norton. Shorter pieces have appeared in the anthologies Central Park (Bloomsbury, 2012) and The Good Book (S&S, 2015), as well as in The Times Book Review, Grand Street, and Bookforum. In 2016, he started his own imprint, Star Pine Books, to field his own backlist and newer titles such as Beastie (2015) and Asmodeus (2016). In 2021, His latest novel, The Unknown Woman of the Seine (Delphinium, 2021) was tapped by the NY Times as one of the best historical novels of the year. He now lives and teaches in Carpinteria, CA.