Randy Brown is a former metro newspaper reporter, and a former editor of national consumer and trade magazines. He is a retired 20-year veteran of the Iowa Army National Guard with one overseas deployment. In May-June 2011, he embedded in Afghanistan as civilian media with his former unit. His award-winning literary and journalistic writing appears widely in print and on-line. In 2019, he co-edited the inaugural Military Writers Guild anthology “Why We Write: Craft Essays on Writing War.” He lives in Central Iowa with his wife and two children.