I had the privilege of interviewing the debut author Nate Brown about his book Drownfire. I loved his passion for young people and helping them navigate the awkwardness of being adults. You can read the full transcript of the interview below.
MILOA: Good day friends. Miloa here. And today I have the honor of speaking to Mr. Nate Brown, the author of Drownfire. Hi, Nate. How you doing today?
NATE: I'm doing great. How are you, Miloa? MILOA: I am doing fantastic. Thanks so much for taking your time and being here with us today. I'm super excited to be talking about your book Drownfire and I have a bunch of questions I'd love to ask you. What is Drownfire about and who is the main character?
NATE: Rock Peterson is a homeschooled kid who lives a sheltered and unremarkable life, with his parents and family in a little apartment above a gas station on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park. One day, his dad proves to be bulletproof, and he is thrust into this world, of his parents, where, it's hidden from the regular world. And now, along with his friends that he's met in this new world, he has to learn how to use his unique and unpopular abilities to help him face bullies and teachers and his parents, and maybe even a dragon.
MILOA: What inspired you to explore themes of being different and finding strength and uniqueness?
NATE: When I started writing this, my kids were pretty young, and one of the things I was noticing with my own kids is, yeah, I mean, as you can imagine, we're all quirky in our different ways, right? In their school settings and with their friends, they were starting to really try to hide some of those things I just loved about them, so they could fit in and be normal. I wanted a story that would help them see that there are so many amazing things about the quirks about us in our lives that make the world such a richer and more complete place.
So Drownfire takes Rock Peterson, who in the setting he's thrust into, ends up being kind of unique. And the things he does aren't always popular, but it helps you know how combining that with other people's weirdness really just makes for a beautiful tapestry of what we can do together, and really enables them to do some amazing things.
MILOA: Dragons are often a symbol of great challenges and stories. So without giving too much away, can you tell us how dragons, whether literal metaphorical, play a role in Drownfire and what they may represent for Rock's journey?
NATE: I have a friend who believes that every story involves a dragon, and we talk about that all the time. For Rock Peterson, he ends up having a lot of these metaphorical dragons along his journey. And one of the first ones that he has to face is in the first chapter when he finds his father in trouble. This symbol of strength and protection that he's always had, and so in the very first chapter, he's slaying this dragon of, you know, what am I going to do?
Am I going to help? Am I going to hide? Am I going to follow directions? All these things to make sure his dad is safe? Throughout the book, that concept of a dragon that you have to slay, is visited in almost every chapter, and really, the biggest one that comes into play really goes back to that idea of, I'm different, I'm weird.
How do I deal with that in a world that doesn't want me to be this way? I can absolutely confirm many, many metaphorical dragons make an appearance in this book. I can also confirm that the theme of a real dragon in this book, runs throughout. So, there, if you're into dragons, there's dragons aplenty, many of them metaphorical.
MILOA: So many young adult stories feature absent or dysfunctional parents or orphans. Yet Drownfire includes loving and present parents. So what inspired this decision and how does that really impact the narrative, compared to the typical trope?
NATE: As a dad, I was starting to really notice, as I was reading a lot of other books that, you know, you have your Harry Potter's, you have your, lightning thief, Percy Jackson, those kind of books. And over and over again, I wasn't seeing a dad who was in the picture, and a lot of times I wasn't seeing a mom in the picture, and I understood the device. Right? When a child has to face the world alone. That's how we feel a lot of the time. But I was aching for these kids who were reading about these heroes that didn't have parents to help them along.
So what I really wanted to do with Drownfire was have a present dad and a present mom and create the plot where they had to face the world alone at times anyway, because that's really how we all feel. You know, whether it's, well, we're still living with our parents or, you know, been out of the house for 30 years, there are those moments where you feel completely alone and you can't find that parent figure, even though they're around you to help you out.
That did present some challenges because, if a child is always with his parents and has them readily available, they can solve a ton of problems that I wanted Rock to face by himself. So we went to some good lengths to make sure that Rock had his moments, away from his parents.
Part of that is being taken to this magical school where his parents don't want to be in that environment. And he, you know, maybe somewhat reluctantly, wants to be there but has to face a lot of things alone. The great thing about it, though, is a lot of the great, moments in this book where Rock receives inspiration that are going to help him later and gets to come from his parents, not just a parent figure.
There's several of those in the book as well, but his parents actually can give him both moments of great wisdom and occasionally some really bad advice that helps cause conflict in the book. So, the the goal is to give us that recognition that our parents can be awesome. Our parents are always there, and sometimes our parents give us advice or training or whatever that we have to learn to ignore.
MILOA: How do you hope that this message is going to resonate with young readers, particularly those that, you know, feel different or out of sorts or not really, and you know where they want to be?
NATE: Yeah, absolutely. I do a lot in the theatrical arts, as far as, volunteering in different, different areas. So I work with, young adults. Yeah. Well, all the way from, you know, children, 4 or 5 years old up to 17, 18, 19 year olds who are normally adults that are on the young side, you know. and one thing that I see, consistent, especially once you start hitting those teenage years, is that you realize that you are very different than other people, and it's not always comfortable to be that way.
But I really hope with this book, that it gives the readers a chance to look at those quirkiness and values of themselves, those strange things about themselves. And instead of being afraid of them, being willing to say, you know what, this is not a bad thing. Let me enjoy this part of myself. Let me enjoy the fact that I'm unique in this world, and maybe I can enjoy others in the same way, and together we can be something way cooler than normal.
MILOA: Now, the book features characters who use humor as a coping mechanism. How does humor shape the relationship and the tone of the story overall?
NATE: It's funny you mentioned the humor. In one of my favorite characters, that you meet very early on, is, a young man named Douglas. Douglas has, severe disability in non-magical areas that disappears completely in magical areas. One of the reasons why I wanted that there is I wanted someone who was truly, truly in a situation where they were losing control in certain areas, but where they could still have that confidence of someone who knows how to get better, how they can get out of it. Douglas is one of those who, he uses humor all the time to show that his disability isn't stronger than he is, isn't something that defines him as weak or incapable? I actually study comedy.
All these things I have in the back of my mind, there's hope someday to, you know, give a few stand up routines. Just as a check box for my life. Right? So every single one of my characters has, something unique about them that allows a bit of humor to come out. That's one of the the greatest things, I think I've ever been taught, was that humor is the way humans deal with the hardest things in the world. If you go to a funeral and start counting all the jokes that people are telling, you'll be amazingly surprised that in this somber, sad moment, how often we have that little joke about, you know, the person who is deceased or, you know, what are we going to do when we need this person's, you know, quirk to organize a softball team or whatever, whatever it is about him.
We tell these little jokes because it helps us deal with how big and how scary and how hard the world is. We can make a joke about it. We get a little bit of control over the things that are out of control for us. So the characters in this book, tthey'll use humor in that way a lot.
MILOA: Now, you've had a long career in software engineering, correct?
NATE: That is correct.
MILOA: How has that influenced your approach to storytelling?
NATE: So we're going to get into a lot of the, the nerd side of me here. But yeah. I've been in software engineering for about 25 years. and so when I started creating this world, that's inside driving fire and especially looking at, the important ways I wanted to limit what magic could do. Drownfire to make it rich and feel very real, the first thing that came to me was, what if the magic was essentially the magic that I feel it is to be able to get a computer to do what you want it to do, only instead of applying to a computer, it applied to the air and, you know, the soil and water and fire and then all these things could be combined in similar ways to how software engineering works.
There is a lot of nerdy, software engineering in the bones of this story. I've worked really hard, and had a lot of friends help me make sure that not too much of that spilled out into too long segments of reading about, things that a lot of people won't find interesting.
But what that does is it gives a very well, tried rule system for this world that allows you to layer magic on magic on magic, that, that I think people are going to really enjoy.
MILOA: I've done something similar in my world that I created for Wings of Steel, but I use civil engineering and mechanical engineering as my rules.I'm calling it magineering, because it's based on principles of thermodynamics, principles of Newton's laws and so forth, but with the elements of how you make this work is by using the magic to actually make the laws of engineering function. I love that because I love that world engineering, I have a background in structural and civil engineering and biomedical engineering. And so I'm bringing all of that to the table. And so I thought, well, how a more fitting way for me to apply all that knowledge that I've gathered over the years and create this whole magic system, that I'm calling magineering because for me, that's the most authentic that I can be.
The magical system you've said is rooted in computer science. Now, how does that really work for the parallel between the technology and magic? And how does that encourage readers to explore technology?
NATE: That's a good question. So one of the the key concepts that I also play with in this book is, the magical society is not very good with science. I don't dwell on that too much, but the scientists and aspiring scientists who read the book will notice that, some of their scientific method is a little flawed and that is certainly on purpose. And what I'm hoping when you look at like the, the pace that technology is taking in our world right now and the very muted pace that you'll notice it's taken in the book.
I'm hoping that will actually inspire some discussion about, hey, you know, if they just applied the scientific principles, they'd be able to do this or this or this. I'm really hoping that becomes a discussion that people are interested in.
MILOA: Right now, I got a couple of fun questions for you. Which character from Drownfire would be the most fun to go camping with in the Rocky Mountain National Park? And why? And who would be the worst?
NATE: I think, it's one of rock's brands. it might be a tie between, this friend and Rock's mom, because Rock's mom would actually be pretty awesome to go camping with. But. But this friend, her name is Dana. her family is is very outdoorsy, very sporty.
All these things, but more than anything, Dana is a character who just loves life and loves to bring people along. So if you're in the Rocky Mountains, especially, if you ended up in the magical areas of the Rocky Mountain National Park, Dana would be a great person. But even outside of that, she'd be the one who would be able to get you anywhere. And you'd really enjoy yourselves while you were gone, while you were doing it.
Now, the worst. I mean, there's plenty of people that that, you know, would be terrible, but someone who would probably think they were really good, but you would not enjoy it. It would probably, I would say that would probably be, one of Rock's other friends. His name is Lorcan. Lorcan is, a very intelligent kid who is prepared for absolutely everything, but I'm almost positive if you were out with him, it would be like attending a lecture on nature while you were walking around and not in, you know, and not in the fun areas. You'd be getting a lecture on how dirt is so important and how the dust that is here was created and so many, you know, all these things.
So while he would be having a great time, I, I think you might struggle if you were going around with Larkin.
MILOA: Last question. If you were suddenly transported into your books world, what job or role would you have and how long do you think you'd survive?
NATE: Oh, man. No. If I were in this world, the key element that we just touch on a little bit, and it has a lot to do with my love of music and theater and such. A very, important part of magic is both music and emotional expression. So if I were going to jump into this world, I would be some sort of musical theater scientist, because in this world, that would be a branch of science that would, I think, explode the knowledge and understanding that these people could have. And it's noticeably absent in the book, because I think if it was there, I'd have to write it a much different way.
MILOA: I play Lord of the rings online and so we have a theater troupe in there. They've just finished Phantom of the Opera. We're just starting to do Fiddler on the roof, rehearsals start in January, but. Yeah. So I don't know. That just made me think of that. That's one of those, like, computers and we're doing the theater and the songs and, like, they're going full length productions. Right? From writing the Midi files to getting it converted into literature to practicing to stage directions, stage management, casting calls, the whole works like it's a full on production, but we have a pretty good crew and cast there that I've really enjoyed, you know, hanging out with and participating in.
NATE: Oh that's great. Yeah. I'll have to look for those to see what you want. You guys get it. Okay.
MILOA: For more details on Nate Brown, check out his book Drownfire on Kickstarter, you can also find the link here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/drownfire/drownfire
And then you can also get a sneak peek to my book, Wings of Steel at my website, mellow escape.com. and you can receive the first free verse, three free chapters there if you sign up for the newsletter. but thank you so much, Nate, for hanging with us today. Thank you everyone for watching. And as always, happy hunting.
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