William E. "Bill" Brittain (born 1930 in Rochester, New York

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

) is an American author most famous for his writings of the fictional New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 village of Coven Tree, including The Wish Giver

The Wish Giver

The Wish Giver: Three Tales of Coven Tree is a 1983 book by Bill Brittain. The "wish giver" in the title refers to the enigmatic man who gives three children a wish to make their deepest dreams come true...

, a Newbery Honor Book. Bill decided he wanted to be a 5th-grade teacher, but since teachers don't make a lot of money, he took up writing instead. Before writing children's books, Bill worked for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...

, writing two serials from 1964 to 1983. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...

.

Brittain is also the author of the popular book All the Money in the World, which was adapted into a 1983 movie.

Coven Tree series

• Devil's Donkey (1981)
• The Wish Giver
  The Wish Giver
  The Wish Giver: Three Tales of Coven Tree is a 1983 book by Bill Brittain. The "wish giver" in the title refers to the enigmatic man who gives three children a wish to make their deepest dreams come true...
  
  (1983)
• Dr Dredd's Wagon of Wonders (1987)
• Professor Popkin’s Prodigious Polish: A Tale of Coven Tree (1990)

The Man who Read... series

• The Man Who Read John Dickson Carr
  John Dickson Carr
  John Dickson Carr was an American author of detective stories, who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson and Roger Fairbairn....
  
  (1965)
• The Man Who Read Ellery Queen
  Ellery Queen
  Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee , to write, edit, and anthologize detective fiction.The fictional Ellery Queen created by...
  
  (1965)
• The Woman Who Read Rex Stout
  Rex Stout
  Rex Todhunter Stout was an American writer noted for his detective fiction. Stout is best known as the creator of the larger-than-life fictional detective Nero Wolfe, described by reviewer Will Cuppy as "that Falstaff of detectives." Wolfe's assistant Archie Goodwin recorded the cases of the...
  
  (1966)
• The Boy Who Read Agatha Christie
  Agatha Christie
  Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
  
  (1966)
• The Man Who Read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  Arthur Conan Doyle
  Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
  
  (1969)
• The Man Who Read G. K. Chesterton
  G. K. Chesterton
  Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
  
  (1973)
• The Man Who Read Dashiell Hammett
  Dashiell Hammett
  Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...
  
  (1974)
• The Man Who Read Georges Simenon
  Georges Simenon
  Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.-Early life and education:...
  
  (1975)
• The Girl Who Read John Creasey
  John Creasey
  John Creasey MBE was an English crime and science fiction writer. The author of more than 600 novels, he published them using 28 different pseudonyms, including Anthony Morton, Michael Halliday, Kyle Hunt, J.J. Marric, Jeremy York, Richard Martin, Peter Manton, Norman Deane, Gordon Ashe, Henry St...
  
  (1975)
• The Men Who Read Isaac Asimov
  Isaac Asimov
  Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
  
  (1978)

Mr. Strang series

• Mr Strang Takes a Field Trip (1968)
• Mr. Strang Checks a Record (1972)
• Mr. Strang and the Cat Lady (1975)
• Mr. Strang performs an experiment (1975)
• Mr. Strang Accepts a Challenge (1976)
• Mr. Strang Unlocks a Door (1981)
• Mr. Strang Grasps at Straws (1981)
• Mr. Strang Interprets a Picture (1981)
• Mr. Strang and the Lost Ship (1982)
• Mr. Strang Takes a Partner (1982)
• Mr. Strang Studies Exhibit A (1982)
• Mr. Strang and the Purloined Memo (1983)
• Mr. Strang Takes a Tour (1983)
• Mr. Strang Picks Up The Pieces (1988)
• Mr. Strang Examines a Legend (1973)
• Mr. Strang Invents a Strange Device (1973)
• Mr. Strang Discovers a Bug (1973)

Other Books

• The Zaretski Chain (1968)
• The Ferret Man (1977)
• All The Money In The World (1979)
• Sherlock Holmes, Master Detective (1982)
• Who Knew There'd Be Ghosts? (1985)
• The Fantastic Freshman (1988)
• My Buddy, The King (1989)
• Wings (1991)
• The Ghost From Beneath The Sea (1992)
• The Mystery Of The Several Sevens (1994)
• Shape-Changer (1994)
• The Wizards And The Monster (1994)
• A Candle for the Bag Lady (2006)

External links

• Biographical sketch from Golden Duck Awards