Kaz Morran

Kaz Morran (author of the 550AU series) was born and raised in British Columbia, Canada but lives in Sendai, Japan (2005-) where he teaches English at several companies and in a university engineering department. He’s taught aerospace engineers, race car drivers, nuclear physicists, Buddhist monks, government officials, pro-wrestlers, yakuza cops …\nKaz does his best writing by night on the tops of volcanoes or in the woods, and by day in the backs of caves. His backyard is also nice. \nEvoking the wrath of the universe, he likes torturing his characters to find out what they’re made of. Along with a childish curiosity and attraction to creepy places, Kaz draws on the wonders of science and the events in his life for inspiration. He’s traveled to over 20 countries (16 in Asia), including a year in Australia, a month-long Himalayan trek, and two months hitching solo and homeless around the States. He endured the 2011 East Japan quake-tsunami-meltdown, got kidnapped in Mexico, was used by Chinese state-run media as propaganda, fractured his spine drunk-sledding, snuck into Tijuana for his wedding, worked at a bikers’ strip club, ziplined off the Great Wall of China, and won a Ninja Turtles VHS tape from Pizza Hut.\nKaz has never spent consecutive nights in jail, because he’s a responsible adult.\nAs a man prone to serendipity, Kaz discovered that the right kind of mushroom can make any car self-driving. All by accident, he’s night-swum with 18-ft crocs, gone rafting down a Thai jungle mountain, walked in on an underground fight club, been attacked by two bears in one day, woken to Luciano Pavarotti singing outside his window, push-started a car through an entire 7-day road trip, been run over three times, crashed three scooters and four cars, and thrown up in the caldera of Mt. Fuji.\nHe has at least one kid (who toggles between loving and fearing the adventures Kaz takes him on), one wife, and prefers being intrigued to being happy, but is usually both.\n