Best

Author Interview

Reviewers Corner

Multicultural Fiction

Spine Chiller

Genre Happenings

Devotional

Author Interview

Meet Creston Mapes

I’ve got an interview with Creston Mapes, who’s undoubtedly an M.V.P. when it comes to inspirational fiction.”

Creston’s debut novel, Dark Star: Confessions of a Rock Idol, was published in 2005. The sequel, Full Tilt, hit shelves in March 2006, and a third stand-alone novel, Nobody, released September 2007.

Scoring extra points, the talented storyteller, Creston Mapes resides in the Atlanta metropolitan area with his hometown sweetheart and four children. He loves reading, painting, morning runs with his dog, family outings, and dates with his wife.

Spine Chiller Thrillers

Better the Devil You Know Than the Devil You Don't

I have always been attracted to stories that thrill. For much of my youth, the biblical story of Samson captivated me the most. Think about it. Here’s a guy who wipes out a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. The woman he loves betrays him. He’s captured and has his eyes burned out. In the end, he brings a temple down on himself and his captors. Bind it into its own book and don’t say where it came from, and Barnes & Noble would stock it next to Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and James Patterson.

So when it came time to tell my own stories, is it any wonder that they took the form of thrillers? My novels for adults (Comes a Horseman, Germ, Deadfall, and the upcoming Deadlock) involve average people facing human foes whose intent and actions are a hair’s breadth this side of a...

Genre Happenings

What A Girl Wants

When you become a novelist, you enter a world of boxes. The moment you conceive an idea in your head for a work of fiction, you step inside a box. It’s not a bad thing, actually. The box you are in will allow you to pitch, write, and sell the book. Even if you write a book you consider “out of the box,” you have chosen an identifiable niche for your novel. It’s the unconventional, out-of-the-box niche. That is your box.

Multicultural Fiction

Bridging The Multicultural Gap

After reading my debut novel, a white colleague chided me for placing it in the multicultural Christian fiction category. She loved the book and thought I was limiting my readership by labeling it. She raved about how the themes were universal and that the book could be a blessing to women of any color...

Reviewers Corner

This month's featured reviewer:

Kim Peterson

Kim Peterson reviews for traditional print markets including CBA Retailers+Resources (which serves Christian bookstores) and Salem Press, a division of EBSCO Publishing, which services academic libraries. Everyone asks her when she’s going to start a blog for all the books she reads ...

Devotional

Getting Ahead Of The Game

As the year changes over, I vow this will be the year I get ahead of the game—whatever that game might be.

I’m tired of procrastinating. I’m tired of feeling the pressure of should dos. I’m tired of being tired. So . . . my solution is to embrace the Boy Scout motto...