Watching It Closely

A little known fact about me is that the first short story I sold was science fiction, and that I published a magazine of CHRISTIAN science fiction in 1992. Apex! - not to be confused with the current Apex magazine, which happens to also be a magazine of science fiction and horror.

My Apex! was a novice attempt to spread the word about science fiction based on a Christian worldview. It got a lot of interest. One of the authors feature was Orson Scott Card. It sold in local bookstores, and I was interviewed on a local radio show called Beyond Reason. The authors and stories were listed in Locus's database. So a reasonably big splash.

That went nowhere. I stopped publication, but continued to write science fiction. Then life happened, and I wound up going in a completely different direction.

But I was coming at it from the science fiction side. Not the Christian fiction side. At the time, Christian fiction wasn't a presence in my life. And despite what some Christian authors have stated openly to me, the SF people welcomed me. They may not have even been interested in the religious aspect of the works, but they had no problem with them either.

So I have been watching the efforts of folks to bring more attention to Christian spec fiction from the Christian side of publishing with a lot of interest. With more time, I'd be more involved in Realm Makers. I've had some great chats with Jeff Gerke, Mike Duran, Amanda Luedeke, and others. I LOVE encouraging authors to pursue this direction, if that's where their hearts lead.

So, yes, the news from January 1st caught my eye. I'm watching both Steve's positioning (here) and some of the responses (here and here) closely. I have my own strong opinions on what Steve kept from MLP . . . and what he didn't. For now, I plan to keep those to myself. As an editor, I'm interested in acquiring adult SF, and my press can probably take on more mature themes than some others.

Publishing is undergoing a seachange. Digital, obviously, is driving some of this, but I also think the readership for Christian fiction will expand, as we make more readers aware that we write a lot more than Amish and light romance. Although I love both of those categories and respect those authors, I do think we need to find a way for more readers to discover the other aspects of our field.

Discoverability remains both the question and the hurdle. And I firmly believe that SF is in a prime place to dovetail with the digital changes to raise awareness for ALL of Christian fiction. So, yes, I'm watching all the recent kerfuffle closely. With plans for the future.