I write for fun. I write because it would be impossible for me not to write. I don’t write because I want to publish a bestseller, pay off the mortgage and retire at 40. I wouldn’t mind if all this occurred, of course, but I am largely unwilling (maddeningly so, some people believe) to facilitate it.

I write what I like to read. I enjoy reading good mystery stories with intricate plot twists, and I enjoy reading all types of novels published before World War II. All of my novels have old-fashioned sensibilities, and many modern readers would probably find them naïve. I believe in God, in family, in morality and in objective value. I believe that good and evil are real.

I am a very lazy writer. I write very quickly, and from my own knowledge. I rarely do research. I also dislike editing, for by the time I have finished one project, I am usually ready to start writing something else. I have extensively edited only a few of my works.

About My Writings

I wrote a lot of stories in grade school and high school, but none of these is very long, for I wrote them out in pencil. Fifty notebook pages was a very long “novel” for me when I was in high school, but it only translates to about fifteen or twenty pages on the computer. I also wrote quite a few songs, poems and plays, including a couple of musicals.

During my years at Southwestern Adventist College (1982-86), I wrote a lengthy novel entitled Tout Qu’on Desire. Inspired by my first encounter with Goethe’s Faust, it is a story about a man who sells his soul to be the greatest violinist in the world.

At Andrews University (1986-88), I wrote plays: Der Judenfreund, Beyond the Night, Nightsong, Farewell to Autumn, Sarabande and Edward the President. The last was a modern-day retelling of the Oedipus story, and it was accepted as one of my two M.A. project papers.

During the past thirteen years (1989-2002), I have written the Percy and Rachel novels (a series of mysteries) and The Kentucky Chronicles (a series about an arts academy).