Brown, Daniel 1951–

(Daniel James Brown)

PERSONAL:

Born October 8, 1951; married; children: two daughters. Education: Attended Diablo Valley College, the University of California at Berkeley, and University of California at Los Angeles. Hobbies and other interests: Birding, gardening, reading American history, and reading Shakespeare.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Near Redmond, WA. E-mail—danieljamesbrown@comcast.net.

CAREER:

Writer. Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, technical editor; previously taught writing at San José State University, San José, CA, and Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

AWARDS, HONORS:

One of the Best Books of 2006, American Library Association, for Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894.

WRITINGS:

(With Bill Burnette) Connections: A Rhetoric/Short Prose Reader, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1984.

Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894, Lyons Press (Guilford, CT), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Daniel Brown was born October 8, 1951. He had a diverse educational experience, having attended Diablo Valley College, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of California at Los Angeles. He has held a number of writing-related jobs, including teaching writing at both San José State University and Stanford University before ultimately settling down to work for the Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, Washington, where he served as a technical editor. Eventually he decided to write full time, while spending his spare hours with his wife and daughters and tending to the family's assortment of pets, chickens, sheep, and honeybees. Brown is the author of Connections: A Rhetoric/Short Prose Reader, which he wrote with Bill Burnette, and Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894. The American Library Association named Under a Flaming Sky one of the best books of 2006, and the work was also named a finalist in the Washington State Book Awards for 2007.

Under a Flaming Sky tells the story of the massive firestorm that took place in Hinckley, Minnesota, in 1894, when two separate fires, aided by weather conditions, joined forces. Brown feels a personal connection to the story as his own grandfather was in Hinckley at the time and was one of the survivors of the experience. The fire itself was a horrific event and arguably the worst fire the state has ever known. It grew sufficiently hot that the railroad tracks actually melted and warped, thousands of acres of property burned, and approximately five hundred people died, many due to their own fatal error of seeking shelter in the local millpond, where the water proved too shallow to offer adequate protection. Brown recounts the events of the day, including details from the families whose survivors chronicles the disaster. He also looks at the ultimate effects the fire had on the state, particularly on the local lumber and shipping businesses that had previously been a mainstay of Minnesota's economy. Brown further addresses questions relating to what Hinckley is like now and how its citizens have taken advantage of the tragedy of the firestorm to create a lively tourism business, with numerous places around town carrying the name of the fire, whether they are genuine tourist attractions, such as the fire museum, or mundane locations such as the local bar. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly opined that "this deft slice of regional history will attract disaster and weather buffs." Ray Olson, writing for Booklist, dubbed Brown's effort "riveting, moving, white-knuckle reading to rank with classic accounts of the ‘perfect storm,’ Krakatoa, and other storied calamities." Suzanne Fischer, in a review for Public Historian Web site, found that Brown occasionally switches directions in his narrative, or pauses to provide additional facts that, while educational, are not immediately applicable and which slow the pacing of the book. Examples include an informative but unnecessary lecture on the weather patterns in Minnesota, the ways in which trains were constructed in the late nineteenth century, and how a serious fire was fought in California in 1972—nearly a century after the Hinckley fire that was the subject of his book. Ultimately, however, she declared that "Brown's book is totally gripping, particularly the parts where he focuses on particular individuals and families caught in the firestorm, and their horrific or heroic stories of escape, survival and tragedy. The book reads like an ensemble disaster movie." Fischer also commented on the accuracy and detail of the writing, noting that "Brown was thus able to reconstruct a minute-by-minute portrait of the spread of the fire, the trains' arrival into town, the time when Sandstone was destroyed, what time his grandfather got on the train to Duluth," and other fascinating details.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2006, Ray Olson, review of Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894, p. 23.

Bookwatch, July 1, 2006, review of Under a Flaming Sky.

Publishers Weekly, March 13, 2006, review of Under a Flaming Sky, p. 54.

Trains, November 1, 2006, review of Under a Flaming Sky, p. 83.

ONLINE

Daniel Brown Home Page,http://www.danieljamesbrown.com (June 16, 2008).

HarperCollins Web site,http://www.harpercollins.com/ (June 16, 2008), author profile.

Public Historian Web site,http://publichistorian.wordpress.com/ (February 22, 2008), Suzanne Fischer, "The Hinkley Fire and Very Small History."