Brent Furnas was born in New Mexico and grew up in Central America, Scotland, Spain, East Africa and a variety of locations in the USA. Later, in an attempt to make sense of his childhood, he studied geography at the University of California. After graduation, he worked as a typesetter, editor and writer for various magazines in Los Angeles. He became a regular contributor to the wildlife conservation magazine Zoolife and in 1991, while wondering through the Zimbabwean bush in search of a story, suffered an unpleasant encounter with a mosquito. Recovering from malaria in Nairobi, Kenya (one of his many homes), he became reacquainted with an English childhood friend and they later married. He now lives with his wife and son in London where he works as a teacher, editor and writer. Some of his education material has been published by Penguin. My Forehead and Other Oddities is his first novel.