Welcome to the website of 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.
    I am a professor of English and American Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.  I have published poetry, short stories, and non-fiction in a number of literary magazines including: The Bellingham Review, Sou'wester,Willow Spring, Kansas Quarterly, Mid-West Poetry Review, Poetry Midwest, Oregon Quarterly, Northwest Review, Orchids, Hubbub, Cutbank, and others.  Other books by Michael Strelow: Kesey (non-fiction about Ken Kesey), and An Anthology of Northwest Writing: 1900-1950.  See also article, "All that Hoo-Ha" in Spit in the Ocean # 7: All about Ken Kesey,  Penguin Books, 2003, edited by Ed McClanahan.  Upcoming work: a novel, The Moby-Dick Blues, about lost love, the original manuscript for Moby-Dick (long lost), and redemption.

Contact me at:  mstrelow@willamette.edu
Wildflowers article link:  http://www.oregonquarterly.com/spring2009/feature3.php
Recent articles on water/water saving in the Oregonian:  http://search.oregonlive.com/reusing+water
USGS water page:  http://water.usgs.gov/
An Irish solution to water pollution:  http://www.marine.ie/home/aboutus/newsroom/pressreleases/Water+Pollution+Warnings+Direct+to+Desktop.htm

To purchase The Greening of Ben Brown go to:
hawthornebooks.com 
amazon.com

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mstrelow@willamette.edu