Call of the Creator: Fantasy Writing from a Christian Worldview

Is fiction a lie? It amazes me how although we Christians all worship one God, we have such widely varying opinion on so many things. One of those areas of divergence is fiction. There are religious leaders who will say that only the bible and non-fiction books are worthy of the time it takes to read them. While I won't argue that any time spent in the Bible is time well spent, I do have to take issue with the idea that fiction is in some way wrong or evil. So, those of us who like fiction argue that Jesus told stories and site his parables as an example. The fiction detractors come back with the idea that the parables weren't made up, but rather accounts of things that really happened. Now granted, just about any of the illustrations Jesus used were very practical, contemporary scenarios, so of course they could have happened. Does that mean that Jesus got the directive from the Father: tell the story of Esther of Capernaum...you know,the time she lost her coin? (Okay, now I...

Nothing brings a smile to my face quite like a box from UPS on my porch. Today's delivery? My copy of the 2010 Christian Writers' Market Guide by Sally Stuart. (I must interject, this woman gets some kind of medal for tackling this book every year.) I pushed the supple cover open to begin my treasure hunt through the pages within. My goal: to track down likely publisher/agent candidates to whom to send my manuscript for The Sword of the Patron . To be fair, I am not entirely settled upon whether I will start sending the book to the four winds before Jeff Gerke of Marcher Lord Press has actually rejected it through the traditional submission channels. Since he has only had it involved in Marcher Lord Select, he hasn't actually weighed in on it. But I do need to do my due diligence on other publishing options, after all. What I'm learning so far, however, is that the publishing options for a Christian fantasy novel aren't exactly numerous. The publishers that do take ...