Place has always been central to J. Thomas Brown's writing, whether exploring worlds that have vanished or imagining those yet to come. His early life was shaped by constant moving-his father's wanderlust carried the family up and down the American East Coast, across Sweden and England, and into a series of remarkable homes: a miller's house at an old gristmill, a barn, an Olympic gold medalist's residence on the Isle of Lidingö, an English manor in Kent, and a Pennsylvania fieldstone house once used by George Washington as an infirmary. After several years in the biomedical field, Brown secured a top-secret clearance to work as a customer engineer in a facility designing spy satellites-a feat made more impressive by the seventeen moves he had made by his mid-twenties. Though the technology fascinated him, his perspective shifted after witnessing anti-war protests at the gates of the complex. He left that world behind for a career in IT, where he wrote technical papers by day and short fiction by night. Today, satellite imaging from his PC serves as a tool for exploring remote regions, from Xinjiang to the Outer Hebrides, and even locating archaeological looting sites. Settling in Richmond, Virginia, Brown tempered his own wanderlust and focused on writing. He has co-produced local access television programs, coordinated poetry readings at the Richmond Public Library, and served as editor and webmaster for The Virginia Writers Project. A dedicated member of The Virginia Writers Club, Brown continues to craft stories deeply rooted in place, drawing on a lifetime of movement and observation to create narratives that bridge past, present, and future.