Beto & the Apocalypse: Author Interview with Doug Dalglish

I caught up with author Doug Dalglish to chat about his debut young adult fiction novel "Beto & the Apocalypse." The book involves an international school with unique characters, neuro chips, and a headmaster with many secrets. It's an engaging story with a timely message.

1. Beto and the Apocalypse is a very entertaining book with some relevant themes and unexpected twists and turns. How did you come up with the idea for this book?

I’ve often fantasized about creating my own style of education system - a solid, classical education that also includes practical, outdoor skills. I think many of our real-world environmental problems arise from our culture’s disconnect with nature. In this book I address the problem by creating a high school that includes an adventurous nature-studies element.

2. You were an administrator at an international school, and this book takes place in a similar setting. How much did you draw from your personal experience in writing this?

I was the head of staff of an international, residential high school. Residential schools are such a fun environment for learning since learning takes place twenty-four hours a day, in and out of the classroom. And with the international element, I was surrounded by so many interesting situations and stories from students from all over the world. All the crazy things that happen in this book – encounters with ghosts, surviving a hurricane, protesting against uranium-contaminated water - are drawn from real-life situations from my seven years in a residential school. All the stories have been changed enough to avoid referencing particular students, but it’s all based on real-life experiences.

3. There are themes of climate change, immigration, and multi-culturalism throughout the book. Why do think this is a timely message?

I started working on this book in 2013. Climate change, immigration, and multi-culturalism were big topics back then, more than ten years ago. Since then, they’ve only grown in significance. All of these topics are about how our world will look in the future, and education is the task of preparing young people for their future. Will we have enough water? Who will be able to afford electricity and food? Who will be allowed to have the greatest abundance of wealth, comfort, and education and who will be denied? What our world will look like in the year 2034 depends upon climate change, immigration, and multiculturalism.

4. Do you have a favorite character and why?

Adriana, Beto’s possible love interest, may be my favorite person in the book. I envision her as a fundamentally good person. Many of the other major characters are morally suspect, including Beto and the school’s director, Justo Contreras. I see Adriana as a person who is simply trying to be a good person even as she is surrounded by complicated situations of good and evil.

5. In your story, the future for students is bleak. Do you believe we are approaching an apocalypse situation in our country like you write about and if so, what do you think can be done about it?

I think our environmental future looks very bleak. We are putting too much stress on our finite resources and we don’t seem to be slowing down much. Over the next few decades, crucial systems like water, food, and electricity are going to falter – for some people. New diseases are going to arise with resistance to our medical interventions. However, the kids in this book don’t necessarily see that as a bleak reality. For them, it is just life, the only way they’ve ever known it. Kids are resilient and fun in almost every situation.

What can we do to avoid the worst environmental catastrophes? We have to give up on individual conservation measures and accept that for all of us to survive limits will have to be placed on the amount of resources we all use. It will require cooperation across all sectors of society and all nations of the world. This will happen, but probably not until things get bad enough for everyone to be desperate for a solution.

6. This is your first published novel, what was it like writing and publishing it?

I love writing. I’ve been working on writing novels for almost twenty years, since about 2005. In that time I’ve written rough drafts of over a dozen novels. Beto is the first novel I’ve taken through the editing process and into publication. The discipline of being edited by someone other than myself was highly valuable and it greatly improved my book. I would encourage all casual writers to push themselves to find an editor and see how the discipline of seeing one’s own writing through the mind of another writer can improve almost every aspect of writing.

7. What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I hope readers enjoy spending time in an interesting and surprising new world alongside compelling characters that they come to see as friends or colleagues. That was my experience writing the book. And I hope it encourages readers to rethink the possibilities of our educational system. Can we do more than prepare young people for the jobs that exist in today’s world? Can we help young people become creative, active citizens who will forge a better future for us all?

8. Are you working on any other books?

I’m working on two more books that follow Beto & the Apocalypse - because I want to know what happens to these characters. And I’ve written a series of books that push the ideas of science fiction and the environment even further by going to a very different world. In that series I think I may have invented a new genre that I’m calling “Stone Age science fiction.”

Thanks Doug. "Beto & the Apocalypse" is available here.