Woody Brown is an American author, known for his 2026 novel Upward Bound. Brown, who is autistic and non-verbal, earned an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University in 2024.
Woody Brown was diagnosed with severe autism in early childhood. He communicates by pointing to letters on an alphabet board held by his mother, Mary Brown, who reads the letters aloud and transcribes them. He graduated from UCLA in 2022, reportedly the first nonspeaking autistic student to do so, and where he received the English Department's Christopher Zyda Creative Writing Award. He went on to earn an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University in 2024.
Brown's debut novel, Upward Bound, was published by Hogarth, an imprint of Penguin Random House, on March 31, 2026, as part of a two-book deal. The novel consists of linked stories set at an adult day care center for disabled people in Southern California, told from the perspectives of both clients and staff members. A central character, Walter, is a nonspeaking autistic man whose experiences parallel elements of Brown's own life.
According to a profile in The New York Times, Brown composed the novel by spelling out letters on his communication board at a pace of roughly one paragraph per day, with Mary Brown transcribing his selections. The writing process took approximately two and a half years. Mary Brown (who previously worked as a story analyst for Hollywood studios) has stated that she reads sentences back to her son to confirm accuracy and does not contribute to the content.
The novel received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and positive notices from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. It was named a most anticipated book by The New York Times, Time, and other publications. Author Mona Simpson praised the novel, and Paul Beatty, who taught Brown at Columbia, described being struck by the range of characters and voices in the book.
Brown's communication method, the Rapid Prompting Method, is classified by critics as a form of Facilitated Communication (FC), which multiple professional organizations have characterized as pseudoscience. Opponents contend that text purportedly communicated in this way by non-speaking autistic people is actually the unconscious expression of the facilitator, via the idiomotor effect. Janyce Boynton, a former facilitator who became a prominent critic of FC, noted that in video footage Brown did not consistently appear to look at the letter board while pointing, that his pointing appeared to cluster in a small area of the board, and that Mary Brown's gaze was fixed on the board (which she was holding) rather than on her son. A 2024 essay in The Hastings Center Report cited Brown's graduation from UCLA as an example of FC being "platformed at the highest levels of science and education," and called on bioethicists to oppose what the authors characterized as pseudoscience.
However, Rivka Galchen, who worked with Brown at Columbia, stated that she had no more doubt about his authorship than she would about any other student in the class.