Featured Stories
This Author’s Experience with Writing—Rejection—Publication
When I was a kid I was constantly making up mind-stories. I would act out the stories in the house, the… [more]
Jesus and the Publisher
Picture this: Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee and starts to tell the story of the rich man and… [more]
Christian Fiction—Christian Fantasy—Christian Living
A good book of fiction, a well written story, has a beginning, middle and an end. The chapters are the… [more]
The Christian Author and the Use of Foul Language?
A Christian friend and writer, a manuscript, and—shock! The language set me back. He was writing for… [more]
Every Story Has an Author
I disagree with the late Jesse Herman Holmes liberal theology, but I find the following quote of his… [more]
Featured
This Author’s Experience with Writing—Rejection—Publication
When I was a kid I was constantly making up mind-stories. I would act out the stories in the house, the back yard, down by the creek, out in the woods, or I would play them out with my toy men. I believe I was in junior high school when I began to write stories—brief [...]
Jesus and the Publisher
Picture this: Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee and starts to tell the story of the rich man and Lazarus. There is a publisher in the crowd, and he interrupts Jesus. “Sir! Sir!” Jesus looks at him and nods. “Sir, stories about Hades and hell and that kind of thing are not publishable. [...]
Christian Fiction—Christian Fantasy—Christian Living
A good book of fiction, a well written story, has a beginning, middle and an end. The chapters are the unfolding of the story, scenario after scenario—compelling, if not always exciting. I believe it was my senior year of high school when I began to look at my life as a book. The story begins [...]
The Christian Author and the Use of Foul Language?
A Christian friend and writer, a manuscript, and—shock! The language set me back. He was writing for the secular market, and he felt he had to accommodate to the “language of the day” in order to get published. “You’ve got to be real!” Hum. Do you? Is it not possible to influence culture in a [...]
Every Story Has an Author
I disagree with the late Jesse Herman Holmes liberal theology, but I find the following quote of his thought provoking. “Beauty, truth, friendship, love, creation – these are the great values of life. We can’t prove them, or explain them, yet they are the most stable things in our lives.” In fact, these “great values [...]
Christian Fantasy Fiction and Life after Death
It seems to me, that to understand life we must understand death, mankind’s great enemy. I remember being with grandparents at a funeral home where they identified their two fifteen year old twin grandsons, who had just been killed in an auto accident. I recall the grief of a father who backed over and killed [...]
Fantasy Fiction from a Christian Worldview
As attested by the response to the Harry Potter series, young people love fantasy fiction. Many Christian parents criticized the series voraciously, but I wonder if they offered an attractive alternative. Henry Ford once said, “Don’t find fault, find a remedy. Finding fault with the secular fiction marketplace accomplishes nothing. My encouragement is to write [...]
Good Stories Are Like Potatoes and Gravy
There is nothing quite like a good story. Lectures, sermons and speeches are easily forgotten, but stories are like mashed potatoes and gravy, they both nourish and stick with you. In Louis L’Amour’s Matagorda, Mady bemoans all that her new friend, Jessica, has just lost in a hurricane. Jessica’s response was, “The only things I [...]
John was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, and grew up in East Leroy, a small town south of Battle Creek, and graduated from Athens High School. He served in the Army during the Viet Nam War era. He graduated from Appalachian Bible College and Berean Christian College, majoring in pastoral ministry, teaching and theology. He has been a Christian school teacher, a youth pastor, pastor, assistant mission director, mission director, and has been writing Christian fantasy fiction since his two sons were knee high to a gnome - they are now taller than he is! He was a member of a sci-fi fantasy writer's group for twelve years. He lives with his wonderful wife in Seattle, Washington.