I recently Unfriended someone on Facebook, a former student in my church Youth Group. Their posts had turned increasingly political and hostile toward religion. They were now officially on the Bash the Church bandwagon, critical of all they (and their parents) once held sacred. So what happened to the innocent teenager I once knew? Answer: [...]

You can find Part One of my interview with writer and editor Johne Cook HERE. * * * MIKE: From my perspective, there seems to be a lot of illusions about independent presses, the types of quality they will “tolerate,” and the insular, perhaps “cliquish,” nature of their business. Johne, what are some of the [...]

In our continuing series on indie presses and the ever-changing face of the publishing industry, I’m excited to welcome Johne Cook to deCOMPOSE.  John is one of the founders and editors of Raygun Revival (RGR), a digital mag that describes itself as “a throwback publication that revisits space opera and golden age sci-fi.” RGR features [...]

One of the many charges against William Young’s best-seller The Shack was its portrayal of God as a black woman. I have gone on record with my concerns about The Shack. Frankly, God being portrayed as a black woman is not one of them. So does God being portrayed as a black woman cross some [...]

It’s been a couple weeks since my post Why Christians Can’t Agree About Christian Fiction. The volume of comments—that’s volume as in emotional decibels and quantity—that followed, and the conversations that ensued, has been fascinating. I wanted to take a minute to recap some of those varied reactions, ponder why this subject maintains such interest [...]

I had to laugh when I read the following Tweet yesterday by novelist and fellow client of Rachelle Gardner, Richard Mabry. I gave up on MTV when they dropped the “M” and morphed into the cable version of TMZ. So had Richard not pointed out that MTV Movie Awards took place, I would have never [...]

Mitt Romney announced last week that he was running for President of the United States. While Romney is currently considered the GOP front runner, he presents a problem for many Evangelical voters. Why? Because Mitt Romney is a Mormon. Before I proceed, let me say that I have no stake in Romney’s success or failure. [...]

Is there a science to finding your soul mate? Can Destiny be boiled down to algorithms and formulas? Or is finding that Intimate Other flat-out luck? When I pastored a church, one of the more frequent questions I faced, and one of the more difficult, was How does a single Christian man meet single Christian [...]

This is Part Two of my interview with Debra Dixon. You can find Part One HERE. * * * MIKE: Debra, what does a small, independent press do that a large, traditional publisher cannot? I mean, what reason would an author seek a small press as opposed to a NYC conglomerate? DEBRA: With the change [...]