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Former Florham Park Resident Releases His First Novel

Nov 29, 2022 04:29PM ● By Steve Sears

NewStar One” book cover (Courtesy of Paul Brower)

There’s nothing quite like as a child dreaming of a career, living that career, and then harkening back to it in a way in a young adult novel.

An Aerospace engineer and current Director of Mission Operations for the Blue Origin lunar program in Virginia, Paul Brower, has done just that. His first novel, “NewStar One,” was published on September 10, 2022.

Paul Brower at the Florham Park Library (Courtesy of Paul Brower)

 He reached back into his past for the fictional work. “I always thought through my childhood, ‘I want to be an astronaut. Why don't they let kids go into space?’ says Brower. “I've always had that idea in my head. I’d done a little bit, especially with NASA outreach, of bringing the excitement of space to students and to young people. I was inspired by some fictional stories that inspired other youth to think about going into space, so I thought adding or having a story where a fictional teenager has an opportunity to fly to space might be really inspiring.”

“I first got interested in Space probably in middle school,” says Brower, who wrote his novel on and off over five years. “I watched the movie, Space Camp, I kind of was into science fiction, and I started getting more interested.” Brower then discovered the actual Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, and his parents sent him and his best friend down there for a week. “That really got me hooked,” recalls Brower.

While in school, he also had some fine educators who encouraged him. “I was at Ridgedale Middle School, and I had some great science teachers there, and then went to Hanover Park High School,” explains Brower. “I started taking all the Advanced Placement math and science classes I could, so I took AP Physics and AP Chemistry. I actually started an after-school science club with a chemistry teacher at the time who helped me, and we did some supplementary, extra experiments, just some fun things. All that got me just really, really interested in it, and so after I graduated from Hanover Park, I knew I wanted to be in Aerospace.”

Brower’s next stop was Purdue University and an Aerospace Engineering degree. While there, he got into the NASA Internship Program, and attended a Zero-G Experience flight class, where the students worked with the professor doing some experiments as part of a NASA Student Outreach Program. Brower got to go down to Houston and flew on their “Vomit Comet,” the Zero-G trainer aircraft used to train astronauts to do experiments on. Brower then went on to work for NASA for over 20 years.

From the early sessions of writing “NewStar One” until completed draft, the first-time author had some good encouragement. “I had a friend who had worked with some agents and was kind of in the literary business, and she gave me a lot of good feedback,” says Brower. “I kind of went back on certain things and rewrote parts, so there's a lot of process to editing and revising and getting the story to where I wanted it to be.” He also had to pick bits of time to write whenever he could. “It was pretty sporadic because my job can be pretty busy, and it kind of comes in waves. Sometimes on missions, I'm really busy and I'm just gone for weeks and weeks. I did a lot of it actually when my kids were young and they were going to sleep, and they needed someone to sort of sit outside their room or sit with them while they were falling asleep. I would sit there sometimes with a laptop and write.”

The “NewStar One” protagonist, 16-year-old Alex Stone, is named after Brower’s oldest son. “I told the kids as I wrote a book, I'd give them each a character named after them. The character is not based after my son in any way, but the name is,” says Brower. Second child, Eliana, is in “consultation” with her dad about his second work, this one to take place in the offshore world with the protagonist’s name being…you guessed it, Eliana. “I do a little bit of sailing, and I've been taking her, and she's really gotten into sailing and really enjoys being out on the water.” The second offering, however, will take place not on the water, but perhaps in an undersea colony.

No doubt Brower and his wife Sonia’s third child, Brayden, is waiting in the wings for his chance.

“NewStar One”, for which Brower did a recent presentation and book signing at the Florham Park Public Library, can be purchased at both Amazon and BN.com.