Brent Runyon

Brent Runyon’s first book,The Burn Journals, is a memoir of his suicide survival. Runyon started writing the book on February 4, 2001, exactly ten years after the day he set himself on fire. Originally, the book began as a way to let go of his past, but when he was finished he decided to publish it with the title The Burn Journals. The memoir describes one year of Runyon’s life, in which he starts out as an eighth grader and begins high school.

There are three main settings for the story, and the book is divided into five parts, three of which being Runyon's home town of Falls Church, Virginia. The first hospital that Brent is taken to is the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where he received most of his intensive care in the Burn Unit. After being in the hospital for over 4 months, Runyon was sent to the Alfred I. duPont Institute in Wilmington, Delaware. The duPont Institute was a rehab hospital in which Brent spent about 3 months. The story takes place from February 4, 1991 to January 26, 1992.

Brent Runyon (or Brenner) (born 1977) is a contemporary writer for young adults. He has written three books. The first is a memoir, The Burn Journals (2004); the other two are novels, Maybe (2006), and Surface Tension: A Novel in Four Summers (2009). The Burn Journals has been nominated for a Georgia Peach Award for Young Readers.