About
Hob Broun (born Heywood Orren Broun; 1950 – December 16, 1987) was an American author who lived in Portland, Oregon. Following the publication of his first novel, Odditorium, Broun required spinal surgery to remove a tumor. The surgery saved his life but he became paralyzed. Subsequently, he wrote two books by blowing air through a tube that activated the specially outfitted keyboard of a computer. Using this technology, he completed a second novel, Inner Tube, and wrote the short stories contained in a posthumously published collection entitled Cardinal Numbers which won an Oregon Book Award in 1989. He was working on a third novel when he died of asphyxiation after his respirator broke down in his home in Portland, Oregon. He was thirty-seven years old.