Call of the Creator: Fantasy Writing from a Christian Worldview

Hey loyal friends! I'm blowing the dust off the old blog here because I finally have some news on the art front. First, the time-sensitive thing that I need your help on, and then I'll do a general update about what else I've been up to since the summer. First of all, I have been painting for a paint-and-sip model art studio called Painting with a Twist since January, and they are sponsoring an art contest. The idea is that artists from the franchises would submit paintings they think customers (often with little to no art background) would like to paint and find attainable (since painting is SO not fun when you can't do what the artist is teaching.) So anyway, about 500 paintings landed in the submission box at the corporate office, and mine made it into the top 20! Feelin' pretty good about that, even though I will probably go to my grave insisting I'm not really a painter. The submission I offered up looks like this: So if you go to:  http://www.paint...

For a limited time only, you can pre-order the shirt that captures the spirit of the 2015 Realm Makers Conference! If you're coming to the Realm Makers Conference in St Louis from August 6-8, you can pre-purchase this year's "fun shirt." In the past, I've designed a fun shirt choice, like the Geek Girl shirt of previous years. This year's fun shirt will work for both sexes, and plays on the super hero mania that is the current media trend. Printed on a deep blue shirt and available in sizes adult small through 2XL, get yours today. Sorry if you're just finding this--preordering is now closed.

It has been my privilege, as the founder of the Faith and Fantasy Alliance, to sponsor the Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction. Readers weighed in for the past two weeks to nominate their favorite books, and now the award is accepting readers' choice semi-final votes. If you are interested in weighing in on which books should go to the judging panel for the final round, you'll find the voting survey HERE . It's really exciting to be able to "put your money where your mouth is," in terms of sponsoring the award, because as the Realm Makers conference gains momentum and the Clive Staples Award gains name recognition, I'm happy to do whatever I can to help authors build their audience and gain legitimacy in the marketplace. In order to see a full list of the semi-finalists in the award, visit the Realm Makers conference blog , Read the voting rules carefully so that the award has the fairest outcome possible. Good luck to all the semi-fi...

Looking for a quick read full of fantasy adventure, including an elf who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut, a prophetess who's been charged to influence him, and a silver dragon at their sides? Then you want to read the new, revised edition of Divine Summons, book 1 of The Windrider Saga. This novella is now available for the bargain price of $1.99 for Kindle. Or, if you're a member of Kindle Unlimited, borrow it for free. But what's a book release without a giveaway, right? For the rest of this week (April 13-18), we're taking entries to a Rafflecopter giveaway You know you want this, so enter. I'd also love it if you'd tell friends. A strong re-release of this books paves the way for me to continue onward to return the rest of books to market. Good luck, and thank you for your support!

It’s official. I’m still an author, but I’m going solo. The Windrider Saga is reborn, this time as a publication of Realm Makers Media (which is me, don’t be fooled.) Some of you might wonder why I’ve decided remove these books from the world of traditional publishing (which means you send a book to a publishing house, and if they accept it, they edit and product it), so let me try to break that down.

I got a bee in my bonnet the other day because of a convergence of faith-oriented circumstances that simply made me incredulous. The first was a conversation that happened at once of my workplaces between two coworkers, who were talking about how they have a desire to find a community of faith, but how stringent rules around divorce, annulment, and baptism left them feeling sneered at and "unfit" for certain congregations they visited. (Honestly, I'm about as big an opponent of divorce you will find, especially when the family has children. But this post will go way off into left field if I start down that road, which isn't what I'm hoping to talk about. The point is, the church's attitude about previous divorce in people's lives, and the fine lines between what they recognized as a marriage and what they didn't, too often sours a person's perception of faith in general.)

On my drive to work today (the place 40% of my ideas come to me, the other 60% arriving in my shower) I got this bee in my bonnet to start teaching an animation class. No, I don't mean Maya or Renderman or Flash ...because I don't know any of that. What I do know is the old-school, draw it on paper and flip between the frames sort of animation. Stuff that look s like this: (Granted, this needs some cleaning up, but you get the idea.) Someone might ask, "Who needs to know this? Isn't it just a novelty, this day and age?"

Just sayin' Happy Thursday, everyone!