Religion Update: In Profile
Authors take a novel look at faith
by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 9/15/2003
LISA SAMSON: Writing at the Restaurant
This fall Lisa Samson began home-schooling two of her
pre-teen children, adding to an already long list of household duties. The one
thing the novelist can't seem to do at home anymore—after penning 11 books, including the October release by WaterBrook Press, The Living End—is write. "The older I get, the more I am distracted by the things that I need to get done here," says the 39-year-old resident of suburban Baltimore. "I used to be able to sit at the kitchen table with the computer and have a million things going on around me and still write."
So now, several times a week, Samson leaves the house lugging her Sony Vaio and her notes and drives a few miles to her writing home: Greek Village Family Restaurant. She settles into the quiet lounge area of the mom-and-pop eatery, plugs in and starts churning out pages. Sure, Jerry, Joan, Becky and other staff members and regular customers come by regularly to chat with her, but the interaction feeds, rather than detracting from, her creativity and focus.
"I feel a connection with the writers of the 1700s and 1800s who went to pubs and wrote," she says. "There's a whole group of people at the restaurant who've gotten to know me as a novelist. And I get stories and snippets from them."
That material is crucial to Samson, because character development has become her trademark. She constructs her characters by "dissecting real people and putting individual characteristics back together." Often her characters are memorably quirky. The Living End, for example, traces the efforts of Pearly Laurel to recover from the death of her beloved husband of 35 years by trying to fulfill a list he had compiled of things he wanted to do before he died, including whale-watching in Alaska and climbing a Central American pyramid. Lark Summerville, protagonist of Samson's 2002 release, Women's Intuition (WaterBrook Press), is a church organist who is hiding the terrible secret that she's not really a widow—her ex-husband is alive somewhere.
"Lisa does a good job of showing how messy life can be even as you struggle toward wanting to have some kind of faith and trying to figure out what God is doing," says Dudley Delffs, chief of fiction for WaterBrook Press. "It's authentic. And she laces it with humor and quirkiness that make it really appealing."
The Living End is the third of Samson's books to deviate from the literary path she embarked on 11 years ago. She wrote eight historical romances for Harvest House and Zondervan before realizing it wasn't what she really wanted to do. She decided to try writing what she calls "women's fiction" while standing in a Barnes & Noble and admiring the works and style of novelist Anne Tyler—a life-changing moment appropriate for one of her characters.
"I wasn't making money writing what I didn't want to, so I figured I might as well not make money writing what I want to write," she says. "I had been fitting myself into a different mold beforehand, and suddenly I was released." Church Ladies, her first title for WaterBrook Press, was published in 2001.
Samson taught creative writing at her kids' Christian school for a few years and remains the worship leader at the small community church that was founded by her extended family. But besides the Greek restaurant, she also is gathering material from a little further afield. In fact, like Pearly in The Living End, Samson got a tattoo recently, a Celtic cross on her left shoulder blade. She says that her three kids and her husband, a technical-project manager, love it.
"You can get your mind around the pain, I found out," she says. "Plus I was asking the tattoo guy all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer. There are pieces of him in my next book."
--By Dale Buss
MICHAEL MORRIS: Writing at Last
Michael Morris is too nice a guy to brag about success being the sweetest revenge. But any author who has ever experienced rejection can imagine how it felt when his A Place Called Wiregrass
(RiverOak, 2002) won the Christy Award for best first novel in July at the Christian Booksellers Association International Convention in Orlando.
Morris accepted the Christian fiction award before an audience that included several publishers who had told him the book was "too gritty." "But I knew in my heart of hearts that there were readers out there for it," Morris says. Sweetening the triumph was the fact that the prize was bestowed in his home state. Morris, now living just outside Mobile, Ala., is a fifth-generation native of rural Perry, Fla.
Harper San Francisco also feels pretty smart, having picked up Morris's second novel, Slow Way Home (Sept.), after another Michael Morris—a sales rep in the South—brought Wiregrass to their attention. "I fell in love with it right away," says HSF associate editor Renee Sedliar.
Growing up, Morris was told he had writing talent but imagined writers lived in Paris or New York—or, if they were Southerners, being eccentric drunks. So he chose a business field. First in his family to go to college, Morris earned a marketing degree from Alabama's Auburn University before holding down jobs in pharmaceutical sales and government affairs. But while living in Raleigh, N.C., he attended workshops through the North Carolina Writers Network and took an evening class from Tim McLaurin (The Keeper of the Moon: A Memoir), who died in July 2002 of cancer. Studying under McLaurin, Morris began writing what would become his first novel.
Wiregrass, about a woman escaping domestic violence, was inspired by Morris's life. His own mother and he fled his biological father when Morris was young. His new book pays tribute to the supportiveness of his grandparents: In Slow Way Home, a custody battle impels an older couple to run away with their grandson.
Morris said he didn't have a Christian audience in mind with Wiregrass. "I just sought to write the best novel I could and, obviously, as a Christian, faith is an important topic to me. I tend to write about people going through what I call a hurricane of life, and faith seems to be an important component of that." Morris grew up Baptist but he and his wife Melanie consider themselves nondenominational Christians. In his books, he says, "I try to show both sides of the coin—a personal relationship with God but sometimes misgivings with organized religion."
Some writers find marketing themselves painful, but Morris relishes it. He has visited several book clubs, and wrote a reading guide for Slow Way Home. Most of his readers, he notes, are women ages 35 to 75 who like to read Anne Rivers Siddons and who tell him they appreciate that he writes on real life issues without being depressing or preachy.
"Oddly enough for a male author, he really taps into a woman's experience," says his editor, Sedliar. She appreciates his combination of genuineness, writing talent and creative business savvy. She says his books appeal both as an addition to the Southern genre and for dealing with universal themes.
Morris's fall book tour includes benefits for child advocacy centers in Birmingham, Mobile and Perry. He quotes an interview he read in which Mitford series author Jan Karon, who had worked in advertising, said God wastes nothing. Morris finds that true in his own life, not only with his past career but also with family experiences and his wish now to be involved in social causes. "You have to turn around and make something of it," he says.
--By Juli Cragg Hilliard
DEAN HUGHES: In Love with History
"I sure hope Kathy is going to get her act together one
of these days," a reader told novelist Dean Hughes upon meeting the author for
the first time. Initially, Hughes was confused and a little concerned, since Kathy is the name of his wife. Then it dawned on him that this person was referring to a character
named Kathy in his Hearts of the Children series, which has won raves from loyal fans.
"I get a lot of letters," says Hughes, the author of 88 books. "When you write for children, as I did for most of my career, they don't give you much response beyond saying that they liked something. But adults really want to sit down and talk about it. I get so many people who tell me these are the best books they have ever read, and that they're waiting at the bookstore the day they come out. I've just never had that kind of response before."
This month Deseret will release How Many Roads?, the third novel in Hughes's Hearts of the Children series, which will have five books in all. The series traces an extended Mormon family through the ups and downs of the 1960s; it's his second set of five novels to focus on the Thomas family—Hughes wrote the Children of the Promise series, which followed an earlier generation of Thomases through World War II.
A former literature and writing professor with a doctorate from the University of Washington, Hughes says that while he's "not a stylist," his writing is distinguished by meticulous historical research—he immerses himself in diaries, newspapers, music and films from the era—and a willingness to take on complex issues. "Most people feel like it's more honest and realistic than what has come out of the Mormon market in the past," he says. In this installment, for example, a young Mormon woman realizes she has married a man who is controlling and manipulative. This story line draws from Hughes's own experiences as a volunteer in the LDS Church's coalition on domestic violence, where he learned some of the realities of abusive homes.
Hughes is excited by the development and maturation of Mormon-themed fiction. "We're starting to see more genres, and growth in quality." He published his very first novel with Deseret in 1979, and praises the publisher for sticking by him in the early days when he "didn't sell an awful lot of books." Times have certainly changed: Deseret reports that the first seven books in the two Thomas family series have struck a real chord in the LDS market, selling 675,000 copies for sales of $10 million worth of print and audio versions.
A father of three and grandfather of six (soon to be eight), Hughes says that he has enjoyed working from home, especially when his kids were young. He is a highly disciplined writer who keeps regular hours and itches to get back to his computer after a day off. "I try to tell myself that 8:00 is starting time, and that I'm late for work unless I'm there," he explains. "I usually write for four to seven hours, and then I read history. So I'm still working on my series, but I've already gotten a chapter drafted for the day."
After eight books in as many years, Hughes still loves the Thomas family, though he's looking forward to trying other projects when the next two Hearts of the Children novels are completed. He's also managed to squeeze in another novel this year: In January, he'll release a stand-alone romantic comedy with Deseret called Midway to Heaven. He eventually plans to do a WWII novel for the national market, and also has a contract with Atheneum for a YA novel about Vietnam. (Many of Hughes's books have been with New York publishers, including 29 with Random House.) Although he is inching closer to a traditional retirement age, Hughes claims he will never quit honing his craft. "I can't picture getting to an age where I won't want to write anymore," he says. "Part of it is the feeling that next time, I'll get it right."
--By Jana Riess
TED DEKKER: Black, White and Read
In less than four years, prolific author Ted Dekker has written an impressive total of seven books, with three more planned for the coming year. And with more than half a million copies of his books in print, W Publishing is positioning him as its up-and-coming novelist of note.
It was only a couple of years ago, with three titles to his credit at the time, that Dekker's rise to prominence began when the renowned evangelist Bill Bright hand-picked him to coauthor a pair of novels. The books, Blessed Child and A Man Called Blessed, helped move Dekker's writing from the shadows into the limelight and prepared the way for his bestselling sixth title, Blink, which was released in January to considerable buzz and has sold about 100,000 copies to date. With the success of Blink, W Publishing felt Dekker's work had achieved a solid audience, so in June the publisher decided to release Thr3e in hardcover, the author's first book to be released in that format. Employing a unique marketing strategy, the house also made the book available in two distinct hardcover editions—one black and one white—to highlight the book's treatment of good and evil.
To date, all seven of Dekker's novels have landed on the Christian fiction bestseller lists, with as many as four appearing on the charts simultaneously. Dekker attributes his admirable output to good old-fashioned hard work. "I am not a fast writer, but I work very hard, as I typically write for 10 hours a day, six days a week," he says. "I believe that the heart of creativity is found in spiritual discipline, so I exercise my gift."
Dekker's compelling style crosses genres and cannot be conveniently pigeonholed, which is fine with Dekker, who prefers not to carry the baggage that labels often bring, especially among mainstream readers. "As the son of missionaries, I grew up as what is called a third-culture child. Given such experiences, I lived outside of the conventional box and I am destined to create outside of it," Dekker tells PW.
Publishers Weekly's review of Thr3e stated, "Dekker's prose is strong, putting him in a league above many other evangelical Christian writers. [He] eschews most of the conventions of evangelical fiction. His spiritual message is subtle and devoid of the theologically and politically conservative agenda present in other novels."
W has incorporated the use of movie-style trailers on CD-ROM for Thr3e and on DVD and VHS for an upcoming trilogy of titles planned for release in 2004. Moreover, Dekker reports that his agent is in the process of negotiating movie rights for Thr3e and other potential projects.
W is touting the release of Dekker's next three titles in 2004 as "the year of the trilogy." Black: The Birth of Evil, is set to release in February; Red: The Heroic Rescue, is slated for release in May; and White: The Great Pursuit, has a September release date. Billed as "three novels, two worlds, one story," the serialized novel is an unprecedented undertaking, according to Allen Arnold, v-p of brand strategy. "Never before has an entire trilogy—all in hardcover format—been released in less than a year, in either the general or religious market," says Arnold.
The publisher is committing "a healthy six-figure budget" to the marketing campaign for the trilogy, reports Arnold. And with more than 30% of the sales for Dekker's books to date coming from the general market, Arnold believes more and more mainstream readers are discovering Dekker's writing, with "strong sales in Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and other discount outlets."
"All we see is continued growth for Dekker's work," says Arnold. "He is definitely the freshest voice in the Christian market and we're convinced that the more exposure he gets, the more fans he'll gain."
--By Sean Fowlds
