Michael Strelow

My 2005 novel, The Greening of Ben Brown, was a finalist for the Ken Kesey Novel Award of the Oregon Literary Arts. This book is about water, ecology, love, a small town, and the strength of community. Not incidentally, it's about a man who is turned green in an electrical accident, moves to a small town and affects everyone. Even the strangest characters in town are made more normal for having a green neighbor. His name is Brown, and the guy at the gas station becomes a local hero for being able to greet Mr. Brown without a hitch while looking at green skin and saying, "Good morning Mr. Brown." The Town of East Leven, Oregon, on the Willamette River, its factory with chemical settling ponds, its citizens, is as much the hero of this story as is the green man. This is my love letter to small towns everywhere, how they operate and arrange themselves.

Two new literary novels: Some Assembly Required (Dec. 2017, nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke award), sort of sci-fi, cyber punk, humor and literary fiction. The Moby-Dick Blues (March 30, 2018), pursuing the (long lost?) manuscript for Melville's great American novel, Moby-Dick, mixes together thieves, a university professor, some innocent bystanders, an NBA retired player, and Arvin, the young man who has found the manuscript in the walls of his family's Boston home.

I have published three children's books (MG, middle grade, ages 8 to 12 or so): The Princess Gardener (April 27th, 2018), Book II of the series, The Alyssa Chronicle (Oct. 2018), and Book III, Jake's Book.