We're Slowly Taking Over!

It's been an interesting 24 hours for me. If I were one to try to read into things, I'd think that perhaps Someone was trying to send me a sign.

As my profile says, I'm a proud member of The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. I've belonged to this denomination all my life and I can't imagine myself ever leaving. Well, that's not entirely true, but that's a discussion for another day.

As you also know if you've read my blog for a while, I'm also an unpublished author. Up until today, I thought that there weren't that many LCMS authors out there. 24 hours ago, I was aware of only one, Dr. Paul L. Maier, author of my favorite book. I always thought that if I were to be published, I would be a rarity: an LCMS author.

Turns out, we're not as rare as I thought.

Yesterday I sent out a mass e-mail update to my family and friends. I mentioned in the update that I would be attending the ACFW Conference in Dallas. Shortly thereafter, my Uncle Paul wrote back to me and said, "You know, the LCMS pastor in Fairmont (a town about twenty miles to the west of where I live) is a Christian author. He's had some stuff published."

I was stunned. I've met this man and never knew! So I did some digging and sure enough, there he was. I made a mental note that the next time I saw him, I'd have to pick his brains a little.

But the hits just keep on coming! Jill's Mom occasionally will send Jill articles from the Minneapolis paper or other sources. Today, Jill received a copy of the Concordia Academy - Bloomington Highlights, the newsletter of her high school alma mater. The front page story?

The Secret's Out: Author and Lancer alumna keeps focus on faith, faimly, in 'Secret Life of Bekcy Miller' novel

Turns out this lady wrote a speculative fiction piece about a daydreaming housewife. That piqued my interest. After all, speculative fiction is the broad umbrella term for stuff like sci-fi and fantasy, things I'm keenly interested in. I read about the "Mom-lit" book she wrote, but then I hit a paragraph that made me sit up and take notice:

Hinck plans to continue her writing and has additional books already in the works. Sharon's eyes light up when she speaks about the first book she wrote which will be published as part of the Restorer series by NavPress in June 2007. The series, with some analogies to the story of Deborah from the book of Judges, tells the story of a woman who is "pulled into a world waiting for a promised restorer."

I just about flipped. I had heard about this already! One of the wonderful folks in the ACFW forum, Mir, posted a story about how Jeff Gerke, then an editor at NavPress, acquired this book through Steve Laube, a literary agent. So I knew this speculative fiction book was in the works; I had no idea it was written by an LCMS author!

So I guess, if I'm fortunate enough to get published in the near or not-so-near future, that I won't be the only or even one of the few LCMS authors. But hey, that's all right. There's strength in numbers.