The Steve saga continues last week,
we invited librarian and novelist Steve Raza to explore his worlds of
spaceship, superheroes, and a little steampunk.
Now you could say that we are switching genres to a spy thriller. Well,
perhaps not, but we do have a secret agent man arriving in the studio.
He has helped to discover some of your favorite authors.
He's also helped create a lot of your favorite books in fiction and non-fiction
he leads his own not so secret literary agency and is also publisher of
enclave publishing. Steve lobby is our next guest on fantastical truth.
They hold again, fantastical truth,
the podcast from Laura haven.com in which we explore fantastical stories for
God's glory and apply their meanings to the real world.
Jesus calls us to serve I'm E Steven Burnett,
the publisher of Laura Haven and co-author of the pop culture parent.
And I'm Zachary Russell. And it is no secret that on my bookshelf,
our mini books, that I still need to read many of them from our publisher today.
Please don't tell them and keep that a secret. But this is episode 129.
Why does fantastical fiction express God's creativity?
And we're gonna be joined by the head of enclave publishing Steve lobby.
This is episode two of our Steve saga. Next week,
we will have a finale. Steve will cue that up in just a little bit.
We're also going to go through a few, uh,
concessions about this episode before we get started with our guest. I think,
uh, Steve lobby may be waiting on, uh,
some final unearthing for his unique means of transport today. Yeah, real quick,
uh, for the concession stand. Uh, we've got a few snacks here,
a little bit healthier this time.
I think we cleared out the potluck from a few weeks ago. Uh,
this episode is actually featuring a guest from, uh,
the cover sponsor for fantastical truth. The enclave publishing,
which is now owned by Oasis family media.
So whenever you get an ad for either one of them at the top of this show, uh,
it's the same folks,
Oasis family media bought enclave publishing earlier this year, regardless,
however, of who the sponsor is, uh,
we would want to invite this particular Steve and the next Steve,
in this Steve saga to hear their unique perspectives behind the scenes of
Christian publishing another concession too.
If you happen to be in the Christian writer world, chances are,
you may have pitched a project, uh, to our guest today. And, uh,
just a little secret for you. We are no exception,
but as usual fantastical truth will not be a writing focused show.
We're not doing industry and punctuation and how to get an agent and all that
sort of thing. You can go elsewhere for those resources. Instead,
we hope to hear as fans,
Steve's heart behind enclave and all Christian publishing, uh,
in which he has spent several decades and has lots of stories to share.
We wanna look behind the scenes, uh,
just as if you were looking at a film set as a fan,
just wanted to see how they make the movie magic.
You're not trying to get into pictures yourselves.
That's exactly how we're looking at the publishing industry today.
Having heard Steve lobby speak at several events,
we always appreciate his candor about this work. He,
he tends to be very positive about this, uh, but also very realistic about it.
And I always appreciate that kind of transparency from a fine Christian
professional. So we're looking forward to that conversation first. However,
let's cover that sponsorship. It's our cover sponsor. Again, for this episode,
enclave publishing itself,
focusing on the upcoming novel flight by Kristin young,
this is book three of the collective underground series.
Here's the cover description on the cusp of graduation.
Cadence is finally feeling in control.
She's about to become one of the prestigious elites working in the hall of love.
Plus she can take her place as a full member of the underground sirens who meet
secretly in love city. She'll finally be able to use her memory skills for good,
instead of reporting people as a watcher,
but a dangerous trap is set throwing cadence into unwelcome and unfamiliar
territory.
Someone in the collective remembers things that could very well get her killed.
The muse is by her side after all,
but will she be protected when someone powerful wants her dead enclave
publishing presents flight by Kristin young, it is available September 13,
wherever books are sold also available in audiobook format from Oasis audio.
You can get all those links currently at top hour podcast sponsors page Laura
haman.com/podcast sponsors, or get the basic link.
I'll top our show notes for episode 129.
Steven, I'm really excited to talk to Steve today on the podcast.
I first heard a talk from him about four or five years ago. And, uh,
it was kind of about the basics of why do we even have science fiction and
fantasy? Why do Christians write in it? What's what are we getting at?
And there was this line. He said,
that's always stuck with me science fiction deals with improbable
possibilities,
whereas fantasy deals with plausible I impossibilities.
And I've always thought that's a great way of summarizing it.
That science fiction is about our possible future. Although probably improbable,
not probably not gonna happen fantasy deals with things that are just straight
up impossible, but it makes the whole setting seem plausible. The,
the characters seem very plausible and the, uh, the events, you know,
make sense within that world. And, uh,
it that's always kinda helped me separate the two a little bit in my head.
I enjoy both types of stories.
There's plenty of overlap between the two genres and of course,
enclave publishing has been in this business for quite some time,
even going back to when it was known as a previous publisher name.
Interestingly, Zach,
just as you were saying that I recall that probably the first time I met our
second Steve here,
Steve lobby was at a conference of the American Christian fiction writers, uh,
which happens to be going on again at the very moment they were recording this
episode. So interesting little, uh, coincidence of timing there, by the way,
I hear this strange scratching sound under the floor.
I think our guest may be arriving in the studio,
so let's play up some floorboards and see what's going on.
Steve lobby has worked over 40 years in the book industry.
He has been a bookstore manager and editor at Bethany house publishers before he
started his own literary agency.
The Steve lobby agency has since represented nearly 2000 books across many
different genres. In 2014,
he bought an existing publisher of Christian made fantastical fiction,
which is now known as enclave publishing. Earlier this year,
the company was sold to a new owner,
Oasis family media with Steve still serving as publisher.
He's also the author of many nonfiction resources for Christian writers,
including a new book releasing next year.
And is president owner of the Christian writers Institute.
He's also arriving in the studio of via a secret tunnel,
which has been dug out over 40 years with spoons.
Steve we're so glad you were able to make it today.
and I'm exhausted with the travel. I mean, oh man, .
That cannot be, yeah. Maybe.
Try bigger spoon, you know.
Plus sure that there's all kinds of, uh,
worms and little tree branches that sticking out the size of that tunnel, uh,
in the.
Industry that you're in. They're, they're all over my shoulders right now.
Very he, a very heavyweight and.
To get to Texas, you gotta go through all the limestone. So good luck with that.
so Steve,
we'd like to ask this of any new arrival in the allure human studio.
How did you discover biblical faith and fantastic imagination?
What is your superhero origin story here? And of course by Christian law,
it has to start with,
I was eight years old and I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I accepted Aslan
as my Lord and savior.
Well, it didn't quite start that way, but I started, you know,
grew up in a Christian home and was well discipled and taught, uh,
the basics of the faith from a very young age. It was when I was,
uh, I think it was 10 years old. We were on a long,
uh,
car trip across the United States cuz we were living in Alaska at the time.
So my mom and dad thought it would be cheaper to just fly to Seattle, buy a car,
drive it across all around the United States and then sell the car and
fly home. Oh wow. Which is what, which is what we did. uh,
so I'm in the back of this station wagon.
My two brothers are in the middle seat.
I'm I get the whole back area to myself and I read
mysterious island by Jules Verne. Ah.
Yes.
I didn't know it was a sequel. So I didn't know who captain Nemo was.
I didn't know any of this background to the story.
I just started reading this fantastic adventure
on this hidden island and it captured my
imagination.
So I began looking for other books
that might, you know, serve to capture the imagination. And I,
I think the next one I read was at the Earth's core by Edgar rice burrows,
which is not the Tarzan, which is not the Mars series.
It's a land beneath the earth called Paar
where all the dinosaurs now live. And so, so there was this entry,
I think, through a volcano shaft or whatever. And you're under the,
under the earth that captured my imagination.
And I read every single book in that series then began reading the Mars series
then, you know, start exploring, exploring, exploring.
And I think I was 16 when my,
one of my older brothers gave me the Chronicles of Nadia, uh,
for Christmas and uh, sorry,
I'm gonna really get granular in my memories here,
but that same Christmas I had asked for a new album,
which will now date me because I said the word album ,
but I asked for ed Emerson lake and
Palmer's new album called brain salad surgery.
So I'm listening to brain salad surgery while I'm reading lion,
the witch in the wardrobe.
That is the soundtrack in my head.
Whenever I think of Narnia. Literally.
What is brain salad surgery? What, what is, what, what kind of music is.
That? Um, uh, let's just call it progressive rock or electronic rock. Okay.
Uh, you think of the song, uh, welcome back.
My friends to the show that never ends that's in that album.
Oh, okay. I have heard of that one.
So you start listening and I can still hear the,
the Mo synthesizer from Keith Emerson and the, the, uh,
vocals of, uh, Chris lake I think was his name was the, uh,
the main singer. And I hear that music whenever I think of Narnia,
I highly doubt that CS Lewis had that in mind. .
A lot of people think of the, uh, there was the BBC, uh, uh,
made for TV series that they did, which had a rather memorable theme.
A lot of people associate that for me,
I guess the only music I think of Narnia is that, you know, admittedly the 2005,
uh, film soundtrack, which is, which is pretty good. Sure. Pretty good. But, uh,
I would not have thought about a, uh,
a rock album being the prime association there.
I would put the, uh,
the records on my record player and put on my headphones and then sit in my bed
and read.
And so a lot of books from that era have
soundtracks in my head,
cuz I was exploring all sorts of kind of music at the time.
Partly because there were no Al there was no Christian alternative. Mm.
At the time again, dating myself, you had Barry McGuire, you had love song.
You had Phil Kek.
They really didn't rock and roll for someone who was in high
school, who liked black Sabbath and blue oyster cult and, uh,
Aerosmith, which was a brand new group at the time.
But it was truly during that time that the,
the concept of the imagination and these fantastical stories to use your
word, which is a great word for it, literally captured my imagination.
It just took me to those places that I never thought were possible and
began a journey into which I've,
I've estimated tried to estimate how many science fiction or fantasy
novels that I've read in my lifetime. And it's probably getting close to 3000.
Wow. I'm a voracious reader. I'm a fast reader.
And so when someone begins talking to me about an idea as if it's brand new,
that, oh, it's never been done before. I'm going, uh, yeah, it has,
it was in, you know,
Theodore Sturgeon's book or it was an Alfred Best's book or,
you know, all these obscure authors and I'm,
they're not obscure, they're classics, you just haven't read them.
So don't say it's unique. It might be,
but make sure you're you, your claim is absolutely accurate.
So you move from enjoying these books, uh,
to being the manager of a bookstore.
And then from there not to skip too much, uh, you end up, uh, working,
actually doing, uh, editorial work and uh,
I think ultimately right acquisitions with the Bethany house publishers,
which is the evangelical publisher.
Yeah. I, uh, was hired to,
as an acquisitions editor for Bethany house. Uh,
they didn't really want me to do their proofreading or their copy editing.
That would've been a big mistake. Um, but I even in the interview,
Carol Johnson, who's the lady who hired me and that's by the way,
the lady for whom the Carol awards are named, oh,
so I was hired by one of the great, uh,
stalwarts of Christian fiction in our industry who, you know,
really nurtured and helped me along. But she said,
we need to have someone who has an instinct for what a good book is.
And we think you have that to jump forward in this kind of this journey,
when it came to publishing science fiction or
fantasy in the Christian marketplace. Now, remember my background,
this is my interest and the editorial staff and the
marketing people and the finance people and management.
They all knew what I liked,
but I waited seven years before I pitched my first science
fiction project to the pub board.
And I still remember to this day, introducing the project, I said,
I have been with the company for seven years.
I have brought a bunch of different projects to you and you all know I'm kind of
a science fiction and fantasy nerd.
And I raised my hand with the symbol live long and prosper,
and they all laughed. And I said,
how many of those kinds of books have I brought to this table in the last seven
years? And they said, none. I said, you're right until today.
And that was Kathy tires and the novel Firebird.
And I was able to say, this is an author who has written star wars.
Novels has been on the New York times best seller list.
And if we are going to experiment for lack of a better term
in this genre, we can't do any better than this.
This is where we have to start. And I remember Gary Johnson,
Carol Johnson's wife, who was the president of the company.
He leaned back in his chair and he goes, well, if you think it'll work,
then let's do it. And this was a man who fell asleep,
watching star wars for the first time oh dear. Wow.
I can't imagine that he was, he did not like science fiction and fantasy.
I gave him the novel Enders game. He couldn't finish it. He just,
it was not his thing. So for him to put the publisher's reputation
behind a genre that they had never done in their
history is really quite a, a tribute to his forward thinking.
And so we went from, uh, it was the Kathy tires books.
Then we did Brandy Erman and John Olson's oxygen and fifth man, uh,
you know, or started winning Christy awards.
And then I acquired Karen Hancock with her books that have started winning
Christie awards of actually won four in a row to the point that they had to, um,
in fact was because of her.
They created the hall of fame for the Christie awards to retire
someone who is won four times so they could, so other people could win.
And, um, after, after that, um,
you know, we had kind of this momentum,
but then baker came along and bought Bethany house in 2003.
And at that moment I had to make a career decision.
Do I stick with the existing organization or do I step
out and try to do something new?
And that's when I formed the agency or at least I became an agent and then
formed my own agency about a year later when I left the advocate
for the genre went away. Mm. And if you'll know,
if you'd notice in history,
there's a gap between around 2005 to around 2008
when there weren't any books being done in the, uh, in the market per se.
And then in 2008 is when Jeff Erky started martial Lord press as a way
of solving that problem. And I remember at the time when he did that, I thought,
oh, good. Now I don't have to do it.
And it was six years later when he and I, uh, five years later,
he and I talked about, uh, about it. And that's when I bought marcher,
Lord press rebranded it as enclave. And that's where we are today.
Uh, real quick though, uh, Steve, before we ever met,
which I think was fairly brief,
may have been an C F w conference in the mid two thousands. As I recall,
uh, in the few years before then,
I had had to subsist with any Christian made, uh, fantastical fiction.
I could find,
I think among the first that I found was the three volume collection of
the Firebird, then trilogy from Bethany house. I still have that book. Uh,
and it's, uh, really cool. And I enjoyed that a lot. And then after that,
I remember getting a hold of this book called oxygen,
which is from the same publisher and that was by, uh, Randy or Manson and, uh,
John Olson. And, uh, just, just loved it. And then I still remember,
I'm not sure what happened here, but the publisher had at least through,
I think it may have been the family Christian stores when that chain was still
open. Uh, they sent a postcard to my house.
I don't know if they sent a postcard to anybody and the store's mailing list,
or if they had a way of knowing that I was an oxygen fan,
but they sent a postcard to my house to say that the fifth man,
the sequel to that book,
I was going to release and they had the date and everything.
This was in the early days of the internet when you couldn't get as many emails
about that. And I just remember like that,
that broke the news to me that there was going to be a sequel. And to this day,
you know, I'd like to,
to be a trilogy because the crew was still out there on the area stand.
They are, they still haven't gotten home. they left their man on Mars.
He went a little nuts, uh, spoiler alert, but, uh, yep. See our episode with,
uh, Randy, ER, Ranson about that.
Well, to use the Ray Bradbury, uh, famous story about Mars,
they're still living there and they are the Martians. Hmm.
Yes. Yes. I think in fact, I think that they'll,
those will be the only Martians will be the people, uh, unless, uh Angerman and,
and Olson are correct that there could be some spores or, uh,
fungal growth or something on Mars and at least in their view, uh,
that would not mess with the Christian view of the, of aliens.
That's that's so cool that you have that connection to those, to those books.
And I.
Still remember. Yes. And, uh, what was it? Uh, of course the,
the pitch for that book originally, oh two is still on your website, uh,
as an example of a really, really good pitch or really good proposal.
They pitched it to me at Mount Herman verbally.
And then what you see on my website is what they sent to me.
And as you can see, they called it oh two. And I said, well, no one,
unless they're scientists won't know what that is, so let's call it oxygen.
And they're like, okay, .
Gotta go just a little bit populist in order to appeal the readers part of being
a servant, I suppose.
So of the 3000 science fiction and fantasy books you've read,
you probably hadn't read 'em all by that point,
but I'm sure you'd read hundreds maybe by that point. Why Andrews game,
why did you give that to your boss at Bethany house? What,
what is it about that book that you liked?
Well, for one thing, it was a standalone, at least at the time,
like there were sequels later that they're good,
but they're odd. Uh,
what I like about Ender's game is I told him,
and as I tell anyone about Ender's game, especially you're for a,
if you're a man, it is every little boy's fantasy.
Who's somewhat nerdy who has the
opportunity to save the world
and the idea of being in a school and being going through all the training that
they were going through.
And just the whole reveal of what that training ultimately meant.
Uh,
it's very much a capturing of that
feeling that you have when you're younger,
that of the possibilities of what can happen. Now,
I didn't give him dune because I felt dune.
Would've been too complex dune and is actually my favorite
of all science fiction or fantasy that I've ever read. Uh,
I think I've read it five times, six times now. And it,
it just, there's something about the creativity.
We almost, you know, dismiss it now because it's like, oh yeah, you know,
big worms that create some drug that allows navigation to happen
between planets. Okay. Whatever you have to realize when that came out,
nobody had ever thought of anything like that or the scope
of what he was creating and his invention of an
amalgam religion that combines Islam
and Christianity and Judaism,
and with a touch of Buddhism, all wrapped into this weird,
strange amalgam made me. And I think of it later,
as I think of it,
analytically is that an author can have religion in their books and have it make
sense. There you.
Go.
Oh, absolutely. Without trying to convert the reader.
Oh, I finished doing, uh,
unfortunately caught up to it way later than you did Steve.
I finished it last year for the first time, just in time to see the movie,
cuz somehow I had missed it all. And uh, I was orange Catholic by the end.
I was uh, thumbing through that little book.
I don't even know what that means.
Orange Catholic you can tell you opposed to being green, Catholic. Yeah.
But if you think about how he did it is that he wasn't using the religion as a
method to convert you because you couldn't be converted.
The religion didn't exist.
So I look at it now as someone who's publishing books that go
into or come from people from a Christian worldview,
the idea is not necessarily to convert, although that would be wonderful.
It's the idea to show the expressive nature
of God's creation and his kingdom through the
imagination,
without saying chapter five has to be the conversion scene where, you know,
you have to say the sinner's prayer and I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
I'm just saying it doesn't work in fiction.
It'd be better to show how people are interacting with their faith,
whatever that faith may be. And uh, some,
some flexibility there without going too far a field and just doing
star wars, which is another version of Buddhism.
I still remember editing a novel where the author had the
character finding their faith within. And I said, well,
you do realize that is Buddhism.
That if you look into your yourself and you find it within,
I said, actually the Christian faith is from without.
And it comes in through the power of the holy spirit
and transforms the heart rather than the heart transforming itself.
And I remember the author going, oh my goodness. I never thought of that.
I've always thought, you know, in meditation and whatnot, you know,
you're looking within and you know, for peace.
And I go that that's a different conversation. Mm-hmm ,
you're talking about conversion here.
And so with three or four different sentences,
the author was able to change it so that it didn't come across
theologically incorrect.
And yet the author didn't know it was theologically incorrect until I pointed it
out.
Yeah. You know, I've, I've noticed with so many things in the last 10 years,
it's all about finding your authentic self in your true self.
There's a smidge of truth to that because God created the world and it was
good.
And then the flaw of sin moved into everything and then he's going to restore
the world with new heavens and new earth.
So there is a sense in which we do find that our truest nature
in Christ that you're right. We can't just find that in ourselves.
That's a STIC basically believe ultimately.
Yes, very much so.
Well it's also American civil religion. I mean,
whether someone is a Buddhist or Buddhism adjacent or not, uh,
that is just a very appealing sentiment that is spread even by those who claim
not to be religious. So I'm glad you're able to help fix that a little bit.
And it actually helps me then to sympathize if I'm reading a novel from a
Christian author and it may come across a theme that like, oh,
this is unbiblical. Or, you know, this makes the author a heretic. Like, well,
not necessarily. It's just simply a matter of the author. Maybe having,
as you said, never thought of it that way. Right.
And maybe just take somebody to come along with a little bit more of a steady,
theological hand and say, well actually, you know,
the holy spirit influences us from outside. So if we're looking within us,
it's more like looking to the spirit who is still coming from outside.
I mean,
it's one of the reasons why I tend to be very careful about any
books that we would ever publish under enclave or that I would even represent as
an agent that are dealing with the supernatural.
If we're going to look at those,
I'm probably gonna ask that author for their theology of angels and demons.
I want you to write it out.
I want you to give me a 10 page paper of what you believe
because it may be, they've never studied it before.
And consequently,
I will have times at conferences where someone will sit across and me and pitch
something and I'll look at them and it's supernatural angels and demons,
you know, that kind of world. And I look at them and go,
you do know that that's not biblical what you just pitched. I said,
it's creative. Don't get me wrong. It's incredibly creative.
However, in the light of the scriptures,
and then I will cite a few passages and I'll say, you probably need to go back.
It doesn't mean your idea is invalid.
It needs to be adjusted in how you're portraying these various
powers, principalities and powers so that it follows a biblical worldview.
So can angels become humans and fall in love with another human?
There's your big question about, you know, well.
Nicholas cage says, yes, he, he made a whole movie about this. I mean,
that settles that he is in left behind. So there's a weird crossover there, but.
Well, you, you know, it's the question of the Nephem, what were they, you know,
mm-hmm is there such a thing as a created being like that?
Or was it mythology? I mean, what is it we don't know,
but this is where people will go to something like that.
And they then extrapolate hyper creativity,
but then they simply leave the Bible behind they're using the Bible as their
flashpoint or their creative point, which is fine.
But you gotta ultimately have to bring it back if we're going to be true
to who we are and what we're trying to do as a publisher.
Amen. Did that.
We, we wouldn't have published. I couldn't have.
Oh yeah. What would it took like an auto parts,
a repair manual company or something that ultimately published do back then.
Nobody wanted to.
Publish it. Nobody wanted it. Yeah.
Very strange, very strange story behind this strange story.
Well, and even if you read his series and continue it,
they get progressively stranger after the
first three, it just gets so weird that it's almost unreadable.
And it has come to light later that the author Frank Harbert was really into
LSD at the end.
So he found his own spice.
To, uh, yeah, he did to inspire him.
And it shows in what's being what was written, especially in books, six,
I think, and seven, it just got strange.
So in a moment, I wanna circle back to, uh, what you've described the enclave,
uh, purpose of being, uh,
to share out of this world's stories informed by a coherent theology.
Let's go real quick to chapter one. Uh, what is the enclave publishing story?
And we've already alluded to that just a little bit, uh, how you, uh,
bought the publisher, uh, from, um, uh,
Jeff Erky was previously called marcher Lord press and then rebranded his
enclave.
What would you say then is the mission of enclave publishing as opposed to other
publishers of fantasy sci-fi and beyond, uh, or even, uh,
different and unique among, uh,
Christians who are attempting these kinds of stories?
Well, that, that is interesting. It's it's it was done more out of a,
a sense that I didn't want marcher Lord press to die.
It was struggling fiscally. And I thought, you know,
we can't,
we have to have the alternative because there were fewer
and fewer of our major Christian publishers that were doing books in the,
uh,
speculative category and then the general market or secular
market, however you wanna deter, uh, label. It was,
were becoming increasingly secular and increasingly anti
price. They had never been pro any in any way, shape or form,
but it had become even more militaristic in its, uh,
advocacy of anything non-Christian or immoral or
whatever. And I just thought we need to have some sort of, uh, alternative.
And I think it was the first two years we were moving in that direction
and then a, um,
a new startup publisher called Gilead publishing came along and offered to buy
us and take us into the stratosphere.
And I went along with that idea and for three years,
Gilead did their level best, but ultimately had went into bankruptcy.
The funding that they had contractually were
supposed to receive, never materialized. Oh wow.
And so they literally ran outta money.
And so I took the company back in 2019,
spent six months trying to figure out now what we are we gonna do now,
they have it back.
And that's when I decided we need to make an even bigger
investment and a bigger splash. There you go.
And that's when I started publishing in hard cover. Awesome. Which no one,
no one in this market does,
especially in a sliver of the market called speculative fiction.
I just said, no, we need to go out there and create something that says,
look, we are as good as to,
we are as good as D we are as good as Bain books.
We are as good as orbit.
We have the product that is as good as anything else is. That's out there.
And I would happily put those books up against them in a row.
And have you read them and tell me, which is the bad one.
It probably wouldn't be ours. That's my goal.
So I wanted to make a difference and it slowly but surely began to
make inroads. I would say there was a lot of skepticism.
A lot of folks were probably waiting to see if we would disappear.
And if we would give up, I'll say personally,
there were probably moments where I felt like I should cuz the amount of
monetary investment that was being poured into these, uh, was significant.
But I just believed in it passionately.
And my wife believed in it passionately and our family, we was just saying, no,
make this happen. See what happens, see how God will take this. Meanwhile,
you saw again, fewer and fewer Christian publishers were doing this.
I have a feeling they saw what enclave was doing and said, oh good.
Now we don't have to.
kinda like what I said when Jeff Erky did his thing is they've just
kinda go, you know, we don't have anybody who's really championing it.
And our sales reps don't understand it so fine.
Let them fuss with it. And if you look at it right now,
there are very few competitors in our space.
None for adult,
but only a couple for ye is.
So we have a niche that we have carved out.
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It was a year ago when, uh, Oasis came to me,
they had already licensed our books for audio and they came to me and said,
you know, we really want to grow our company and expand and diversify and
we believe in what you are doing.
And when you do your interview with Steve Smith,
one of the other Steves in this crew,
you will hear his vision was it's very similar it's as if we separately
had constructed our vision.
And then when we came together and began expressing it,
we realized we were quoting each other. Mm it's really quite amazing.
Oh, that is so cool. Wish I could have been part of that conversation.
To have that happen and then convince the owner of Oasis that this would be a
good investment. And here we are a year later and I just met with them,
uh, at their offices, uh, a week ago. And, uh,
had just a fantastic conversation of where we've come just in the last eight
months since the transition has occurred.
And for them to trust the existing enclave team
enough to say, just keep doing what you're doing.
We don't need to be messing with something that works.
But what we want to do is to bring the power of our organization to what you
have and raise all boats.
And so the vision is to become much more effective and
visible in the marketplace.
It will take time as long as our quality is there. Our covers are great.
In fact, Steve Smith came up with a great, uh,
marketing campaign for the library association this summer.
And his headline was you can judge our books by their cover.
And, uh, we have a new campaign called take us to your reader.
Oh.
Very.
Nice. You heard it here first folks, I think.
Yeah. Pick.
Us to your reader.
I even own the domain, so okay.
so what domain is that? Take us to your reader.com.
Yep. And there's nothing there right now, but it's just, it's just fun to say.
We want to do something.
That's the alternative to the general market that we can no
longer trust what comes from them. Yes.
To be appropriate for our kids or even for ourselves. I mean,
there are times where I'll pick up a book and I'm start reading. I'm going,
oh my goodness sake. I don't wanna read this.
I don't wanna put this in my mind. And for someone who's read so much,
the fact that those barriers are being blown through by current
authors is mind boggling, absolutely mind boggling.
And so to have someone come to our books, yeah.
They may not agree with everything that in the storytelling or, or what,
but it's least going to be within reach.
You know, we're not gonna satisfy every reader. That's impossible,
but at least we will be an alternative to what's out there.
You know,
I've often said that the most unrealistic thing about star Trek is that there's
all these humans with no religion in the future. And that,
that is what I liked about dune is that it imagined a future with religion,
but you're right.
It's kind of this weird amalgam and so many books coming out now though, have,
have sort of doubled down that. And not only is there no religion,
but there is this religion as Stephen calls it of sexualism, you know? Yeah.
That's kind of of the religion and you know,
there's plenty of books with all kinds of different characters in them,
but some books I've read in recent years are conversion stories or basically
evangelistic tracks into this new religion.
And there was one book in particular, I got on Kindle.
I'm not gonna mention the title, but I got done with it. And I'm like,
this was so different than what I thought.
Not only do I not wanna read this again,
I wouldn't want my kids to ever read this.
And I just deleted it from my Kindle library.
And I think that's the only book I've ever deleted. Um,
usually I'm worried about Amazon deleting books that I've bought, but this one,
I was.
Like, Zach's method of a book burning there. You're such a sensor there, Zach.
Digital book burning. There we go. You heard it here first .
So that, that's kind of the, I don't know if I answered your question there,
Steve, but um, you know, that's the vision or what,
at least we're attempting to do theoretically, um, practically it's,
it's a challenge, um, you know, finding the right kinds of stories,
the right kind of readers, uh, expanding into ye in early 20,
20 was a big move for me.
We had been doing books that you could have said were on the edge,
but I didn't want, I just, I didn't feel that our,
our company could handle the, uh, the, the distinction,
but then I realized, yeah, we could. And so we created the enclave escape,
uh, and by the way, visually,
if anybody is curious and you see our books on a book table,
the difference between the adult and the Y is the trim size.
So six by nine hard cover is adult five and
a half by eight and a half is Y yes, it says that on the spine,
but you can actually visually see the difference.
And that's because in the general market,
the ye titles are five and a half by eight and a half.
And the adult titles are six by nine .
We, speaking of the hard cover size there, uh,
the ye books are gonna feel slightly smaller, maybe a little bit more, uh,
accessible, a little less weightier, at least, uh, physically speaking.
Technically. And it it's all a matter of, you know, on the interior, you know,
the, uh, type setting may have a little more space in it.
Sometimes our adult titles get very dense and very long. Um,
yeah, so we, uh,
you have to throw an awful lot of words on the page so that we're not charging
79 99 for the hard cover. .
There's a science to all this stuff, folks.
And that leads us to chapter two of our discussion. Uh,
we've already touched on it again,
but why does enclave create Christian made fantasy and Steve and Zach,
you've both talked about, uh, some of the, uh, issues in the general market.
And that's what I appreciate a few times, Steve, when, uh,
you and I have been at different events and you've been on a panel, uh,
and even some folks that, you know, I'm sure they very mean well,
but at Christian hosted events and they will speak for example, about, uh,
all of the diversity in things, you know,
they use good words to describe maybe some good things that are happening, uh,
in the general market. Uh, but then others will kind of cheerlead, uh, some of,
yeah, what I call the, the sexualism, oh, you've got all these different, uh,
identities represented in the books. And it's so great.
And I remember at least at one event where you just said, uh, yeah,
I think that's actually one of my greatest concerns that this is going on,
but I mean,
what are some other challenges then in the general market that makes it
necessary, uh, to do that thing that may seem like a corny, uh,
response to some of our listeners,
especially if you've grown up in an evangelical environment,
but that we argue is still very necessary. This idea of a Christian alternative.
So long as the stories are made with excellence and creativity.
Speculative fiction,
like no other genre reflects the creativity of God.
If you write a mystery or you write a thriller,
or you write a techno thriller,
you are basing it on the rules of this world,
the physics of this world, the way people interact,
it's all taking place on earth.
And all of the other things that you have related to that.
But in speculative fiction, you can make it all up.
There's no boundary to the creativity,
but that's why we say it's informed by a coherent theology,
not expressed by a coherent theology. There's your difference?
An expression is that you are actually telling the Christ story,
but I jokingly will say it this way.
And I don't care if I'm quoted it like this,
but I hope you understand the humor in the statement.
If Jesus shows up in your fantasy novel, it's a bad book.
What is he doing here?
He doesn't belong in this world that I just made up,
but if you place him in the guise of Aslan, it makes perfect sense,
but take a Jewish individual
from the beginning of 2000 years ago and place him into
a book with white witches. It's just gonna be weird.
It doesn't make sense,
but I would rather have the author discover it than have you
as the author point to it and go see Gandolph is Jesus
and you're going well. No, he is not.
And even in reality, even in the tol world,
not truly a Jesus figure,
he is a very strong,
powerful force for good.
And he does sacrifice himself, but it has completely different implications.
If you're trying to find the theology in, in the Lord of the rings,
we're trying to show that if the world is saying that you need to look again,
going back to our earlier conversation,
if you need to look to yourself or your own salvation,
I'm saying that that's not going to be ultimately satisfying.
Mm-hmm , you're, you're, you're gonna disappoint yourself.
That's a really good distinguishing mark.
And that it kind of leads into my next question for you.
One thing I've noticed nowadays with, even with fantastical stories, readers,
want stories to feel realistic.
And usually that comes down to character and, and dialogue and,
and things like that. And, you know,
my thought is the most realistic story that you could create would be a
universe, even a multiverse or whatever, but a universe that's created by God,
because that's the only universe that exists.
And so I would expect a story to have certain laws to it.
Like there there's this, you know, classic evangelistic track,
the four spiritual laws.
And it starts up by saying just like there's physical laws that govern the
universe, there's spiritual laws that kind of govern a relationship with God.
So my question for you is what are some of the laws like,
like the spiritual laws of books that you look for?
I am asked what makes enclave books, Christian.
And the answer is the author does.
Thank you. Yes, Christian May that's the adjective values,
not just Christian book, but Christian maid book.
Exactly.
So the author's worldview or their background and their
understanding then comes into the expression of the story itself.
If you are trying to write a theological track and call it fiction,
it's going to be a horrible story.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Instead you just write an amazing story and people are,
oh, oh wow. That's so amazing. And then someone says, well,
where's the Christian part in it. Well,
then you get five or six people together and they start digging into it and they
go, oh, wow. Did you see that? I didn't see that. Oh,
that's how I understand it. And the author might even be in the room going, wow,
I never intended you to think of it that way, but sure.
Because we each bring our own story to the story,
our personal life, our personal understanding.
And so the three of us could read the same novel and come away
with three different understandings of its intent,
its purpose and its meaning.
I read the songs of all beyond trilogy that Stephen law had did many, many,
many years ago. I had waited five, five years for the trilogy to be complete.
And I waited five years until, and then I binge read it in one week,
all three massive volumes.
And I remember going through it at times, going well,
where's the Christian content, you know, where's the,
where's the allegory because it was it isn't obvious. It's it's there I guess.
But in the last scene of book three,
he turned the entire trilogy into an allegory
in one scene. And I wept, I,
I still remember sitting on my couch, just tears streaming down my face,
going wow. And I was worshiping an author,
had done that to me and I, it was brilliant.
I suspect that other people would read the whole thing come to the very end
going well, that was okay.
They didn't see it the way I saw it because I was bringing a different set of
expectations and understanding to it.
So I've said that to some people, I do remember one guy coming back and he goes,
I read the trilogy and I'm going, what did you see? I didn't see it.
That's okay. That's what fiction does fiction.
It's either gonna entertain you or it's gonna make you think,
or it's just going to help you cross a street that you've never
crossed before.
Feel something you've never felt before and thought something you've never
thought before. That's what great fiction does it.
Isn't scripture. It's not necessarily going to change your life,
but it may change how you think of life through the power
of story and to do something that nonfiction
can try to teach you.
But instead you have discovered it yourself as a reader
rather than having it presented to you in a PowerPoint presentation.
And then you respond to it. To me, that's where the,
the many of the big differences are. And that's boy,
don't hear that as a criticism of nonfiction, cuz it's not.
I think the beauty of nonfiction is that you can explore an idea like a hand
grenade without fear of it blowing up you can actually go, oh look,
there's a pin. Should I pull it? Probably not,
but I can sure explore this thing and oh my goodness, it's a dangerous idea,
but let's turn it upside down and look at it from the bottom instead of from the
side and let's look at it from the top, lets pull it apart.
Let's analyze it and see which pieces we think are
appropriate to discuss. That is the exchange of ideas.
Fiction is,
does not have that intent fiction is there to tell a great story.
It's there to entertain. And if you get some byproduct from it, right.
And here's the ultimate kicker when you're done.
If you tell 10 other people about it, it's a great book.
If it's done and you set it aside going, no, that was nice.
And it's eminently forgettable. Then it was an okay book.
And I would say for most of us,
most books we read fall in the latter category. Yeah.
It's the ones we end up talking about that become the permanent ones that are
on our shelves. And that become part of our exchange of,
of discussion and ideas.
If we try to do that with every single book that we publish at enclave,
we drive ourselves nuts.
Our goal is to try to just tell great stories and create creative ways.
When you have vivid by Ashley,
Bustamente a debut author in this particular world,
the magic is color.
And so people have a color that is
the power rather than something else. And it's just so unique.
But Steve, I do want to go back to something you were addressing. And that is,
you know, this idea of diversity and Zach, what you were talking about. Realism.
I always find it funny because people say, well the books that you publish,
I mean they're, they're clean. They shouldn't be, there should be,
they should have sex and violence and,
and a lot of curse words and I'm going really.
So who decides what's appropriate?
We are going to make them such that you don't even have to ask that question.
There are times where we will pull back certain romantic
tensions in the editing process. So that,
that is not the most important part of the story.
It's not a version of Twilight. Whether it's Wolf,
men are vampires that you're gonna fall in love with. It's more of the, eh,
you know, they can fall in love. They can have romantic tension,
but that doesn't drive the story. These are not romantic fiction.
These are not romantic science fiction in fantasy.
Although if you read Firebird by a Kathy tires, you'll have some people say,
we love the battle scenes.
Can't stand the romance and you have other people say, love the romance.
Can't stand the battle scenes. I've heard both because yep. It does both.
But with a balance, again,
it doesn't drive the story and with language, oh my goodness sake,
our books are gonna be very clean.
I will not put up with course language. It's just not appropriate.
The irony is that in one house,
a particular word is used by everyone in the family.
It's used by mother, father, daughter, sons, uncles,
aunts, grandpa's grandmas. You go into another house.
You say that word ends a piece of soap is stuck in your mouth.
So who decides, which is right? I say,
let's just not make it an issue. Let's just remove it.
Cuz you can still write a very angry person without
having to use a letter and then asterisks.
You don't have to do that. Plus if it's fantasy,
they probably didn't use that word in that particular story world.
You can kind of come up with other words that could be, um, more flagrant,
but they're made up words for that world. Yeah. Um,
you know that it's it's, it's, it's tough. It's really tough to deal with that.
And then on the diversity side, let's talk about gender diversity. No,
yeah it they're boys and girls. There's men and women.
We're just not gonna go there.
And then with racial diversity again,
if that is going to be the driving force of your story, I'm gonna be saying,
why, what are we trying to accomplish here? We can have diverse characters,
but we don't have to Lord it over the rest of the story.
In fact, there was one time, uh,
it was so frustrating and I know I'm going in on public record here with this,
but it's frustrating to us when we are trying to make the books in such a way
that you can place the race of the
characters yourself. You don't even know if they're white,
Asian, African American, American, Indian,
Indian, Indian, you can't tell. So in other words,
you can interject it because we're not sitting there describing their facial
features or their coloring.
So then the reviews come out and the review actually said for one of books,
it presents as white. And I just went, no,
it presents as nothing that was intentional.
Presents as human.
It exactly.
It presented as human beings who were interacting with each other in a fantasy
world. It's just frustrating.
When the world is trying to interject issues
into the creative process that they weren't doing five years
ago, I then as a publisher and as overseeing the editorial process,
I'm frustrated by it. Cause we're trying to say, look,
it's not the point of the story and it's not that we're being ignorant and it's
not that we're being colorless. We're just saying, it's not the issue here.
Let's focus on the redemptive element of this story.
This character's movement through life. And if you wanna make them Asian,
you wanna make them whatever. Then go right ahead.
So we're talking a lot about human beings and what they love to read,
but let's take another break and get to our third sponsor for this episode,
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We have a book coming out next year.
That's based in a futuristic China. Oh cool.
And it's on purpose.
Yeah. It's a Candice CAS book. Yeah.
Yeah. Very purposeful.
And the challenge is that Candace and I actually had the conversation
is, is, is there going to be cultural appropriation and I told her,
I said, I'm not gonna worry about that.
You just write a great story because she grew up in Beijing.
She speaks fluent Mandarin.
After she graduated from college in the us,
she went back to Beijing and worked there and lived there.
So even in some of the terminology in the book,
it's true to Chinese culture,
just even the naming of a character where a person's first name is actually the
last name. So you would call me lobby Steve.
So that's how it's presented in the book,
cuz that's true to the culture in this area.
And for those of you who will enjoy these kinds of things,
when we do the cover reveal, uh, next month,
look for the Easter eggs on the front cover because there are
Chinese characters.
That mean something on the front cover it's done on purpose,
but I know we're gonna get criticism from secular
reviewers to say, this is cultural appropriation.
I'm just gonna laugh at them going you people have no idea.
There seems to be some kind of trap here.
That's often laid in these conversations of you need diversity,
but don't culturally appropriate. From my perspective,
it's like the whole point of a book is to take you somewhere that the author
thinks up and imagines and, and people are free to read or not read.
Uh, but I, there's just a very new, moral code nowadays that I,
I just think that's entirely opposite of the value of free speech that we,
that we can speak. What we want, and we can listen to what we want,
but there's too many speech control codes in my opinion,
that are going on with all of this.
It's very frustrating as a publisher,
trying to make these kinds of decisions in acquisitions. I mean,
I have to sit there and go, should I publish this? Should I not?
Why should I even have be asking this question? It's a great book.
Oh my goodness. I mean, this is gonna blow your socks off.
You're gonna love this story and not worry about the rest and that,
but those are risks you take. We hope that, uh,
it will be well received and that, that issue will just go away.
Steve, I think this is where a coherent theology in your phrase, uh,
really helps here, uh, because you are,
you're working with a more biblical expectation of imagination and why
God has given us this gift to reflect the human experience.
That in a way I think reflect God's glory back to him,
which is the point of having the gift of creativity at all,
to show God back to himself, to glorify him ought to be the purpose. Uh,
but then you get these, uh, these contrary expectations, both from a more,
you know, biblical culture, more evangelical culture,
as well as the secular culture. Like, well, this is not a good story.
That is a moral story. Unless you have Jesus in the story like by name,
unless you have a specific conversion scene, you know,
unless there's an altar call at the end or something like that. Uh,
I see very few of those books now, but at least in the past,
that has been a silent expectation among some well meaning Christians.
It seems to be on the way out, but often, as you mentioned, you get this, uh,
this secular version of that expectation where this is not a moral story,
unless you have a summons to be better,
unless you have a summons to tolerate this particular gender expression that did
not exist pre 2014, uh, unless you have this, uh,
this view of diversity TM, uh,
that may be based in part on more biblical reflections of, you know,
the human nature, uh, post Babel dispersion,
where God has made different people to make different kinds of cultures and
reflect him in different ways. But that are also mixed up in these very worldly,
uh, secular views of, of diversity and some certain theories and things.
And it gets all mixed up in the imagination. And suddenly, as you've said,
we've missed the point of the story as an expression of God's nature.
I mean, and I look at, uh, Dan Schwab hour's book, um,
Maxine justice, galactic attorney. I mean, it's,
it's a RO because you have this failed, you know,
woman attorney who is representing aliens, who are suing the earth.
, I.
Mean, it's better than she Hawk by the way, folks. .
It's just, it's just hilarious. Oh yeah. And then she hope comes out. I'm going,
oh, foie. We had it first. We had that idea first by a year,
even when we did our book for who the sun sings was a,
an entire land where everyone is blind,
except for one young boy who can see.
And that year apple TV comes out with their TV
show called C oh, the Jason, which is a people who can't see. And I just went,
no, we, we were ahead of the game.
Oh my goodness sake. See.
This is what I missed. Not subscribing to so many streaming services,
no apple TV, no Amazon prime, no Netflix. Like, I, I feel like a 1980s,
Christian boycotter now and I'm trying to read more books.
It's just sort of more of a new year's resolution than a religious crusade.
But I did not even know that there was a, uh, for whom the sun,
for whom the Sunday, whatever the title was. I didn't know.
There was a TV show with basically, uh, accidentally stealing the premise.
And it, the irony is that I didn't know about that show either,
except it was, uh, commercials in a super bowl.
And I'm sitting here watching this super bowl and this commercial comes on went,
no, no, no, no, no, no. That's our book.
That's our book. But there, from what I understand,
the TV show is very different from our book.
That book for whom the sun sings has a, uh,
an extraordinary twist in the end that, uh, had me screaming at the,
the screen as I was reading it first time. So anyway,
it's kind of fun when you, uh, get to play in this, this world of imagination.
Well, we've had a lot of, uh, enclave authors on fantastical truth, uh,
including, uh, Wesley, uh, for whom the sun sings and a bunch of others, uh,
passed and present and, and, uh, coming up in the future.
So we'll be looking forward to hearing from more of those and following where
these enclave stories are going. Uh, I guess that leads us to chapter three.
Then now what does the future hold, uh, for enclave and Christian fantasy? Now,
mind you, I could stay for a very long time, like just asking,
trying to pick your brain, Steve,
about the differences between Christian made fantasy and you know,
what's going on with the general market. Yeah. But you know,
there's only so much you can do in,
in cursing the darkness or critiquing the darkness,
cuz we're not supposed to curse. Uh,
and instead lighting these creative flames and that's something I
increasingly see a need for, you know,
even beyond Christian engagement with popular culture. Um,
I used to do a lot more articles reviews of, you know, popular culture.
And occasionally, uh, people will ask me to do more of that kind of thing.
And I'm like, no,
really we wanna kind of do Laurie now and draw more attention to Christian made
stories. And that includes, uh, what enclave is doing, uh, now with, uh,
Oasis family media. And we'll hear more about Oasis from Steve Smith,
Lord willing, uh, next time. But that does lead me to ask then about the, uh,
the sci-fi future for enclave. Uh, we've talked about this some,
what is next that you can reveal for the expanding enclave universe?
Well,
during the negotiations for Oasis to purchase
enclave, the owner of Oasis asked me,
why are you only doing 12 books a year?
And I laughed only well for one thing, that's all I can afford.
And we are a very small group of us and this is about the max
that we can handle. And so he said, well,
what is your feeling about expanding that the number of
titles? And I said, well, if that's what you wanna do,
it's going to be your money. That's going to be underwriting it.
And we have to have the infrastructure sales
structure,
all the other production things have gotta be in place to under underwrite that,
so in 2023,
we are going be doing 15 new titles in four,
we have 19,
18 or 19 already scheduled. So think of that. That's two years from now.
And we already have a very full plate in 2024
and it will carry forward from that into 20, 25 and beyond with the
ultimate goal to try to do 24 a year, two a month. And if not more,
we'll see, we'll see how God works. And uh,
if the market is able to absorb that much content or if they will
start becoming selective, cuz that's one of the things you have to ask.
If you have to pay for every book that you get,
then you become selective or you just simply buy everything because you don't
wanna read anything else.
And we have enough to keep you happy and fulfilled in this
category of fiction. Uh, you won't even have to go anywhere else. Um,
that would be, that'd be a dream. I don't think people think that way,
but that's the idea is that we are going to be expanding our offerings
slowly, but surely it takes time. I mean,
I can contract a book today,
but it's probably not gonna be out for 18 months cuz it takes
a while. Even if it's written today,
I've gotta put it in the spot where it fits so that
we can create the momentum and have everybody
in place. If you're a new author, how do you coordinate your cover? Reveals?
How do you handle your social media? How do you get the word out?
And uh, so that it becomes,
and it lands with an impact from a sales standpoint and then a readership
standpoint where people start going, this was so amazing. Tell their, you know,
tell their 10 friends, uh, about Wonderland trials by Sarah Ella.
My hope is that as we have proven already that we're here to
stay, that it will also begin to attract, uh,
authors who may have only been looking
at the general market or have been looking at larger publishers and realizing
that we have a place where they can thrive and be able to tell their stories
without having editors tell them they need to put in unbiblical characters.
I know of one author that was with Simon and Schuster and he will never publish
with them again. They told him this has to happen,
happen in your books and you're like, it will not.
And that's the pressure that the general market is gonna start putting on our
authors. And I,
I wanna be a place where they can come and be a creative without having that
fear.
We've no many homeschoolers that would love to new books every month.
We've Steven and I have both been to these, uh,
homeschool conferences and you see these kids walking around with giant stacks
of books or reading one book as they're checking out another book and just, uh,
we're a homeschool family-ish, we're kind of a hybrid family. And so we,
we got books everywhere and my wife has a whole lending system with all these
other homeschool moms. And so, oh, that's great. Uh,
that's fantastic to hear that the, uh, the titles are gonna keep expanding.
And we'll try and we'll try to do a mix of, of ye and adult.
And someone has asked me what's the difference? And I said, well, for one thing,
the age of the characters is gonna usually be the first step
in determining whether it's Y or adult. But secondly, uh,
adult novels tend to either be more dense in their storytelling or
complex in the multiple, uh,
sub plots that, that are wrapped into the story.
And certain themes can be dealt with because let's say the character
main characters married,
that's going to be creates a dynamic that a
15 year old would just wouldn't understand. Uh,
they might see it in their parents if they're,
if they have parents that are still together, you know,
so there's this tension of what is going to be ye
versus adult. For example,
Lisa Bergen did a series, uh,
called the river of time a few years back with, uh,
David C. Cook and now is, uh, published by Bethany house,
their ya kind of a time slip where the characters go back
in time and then they come forward. You have all that going on. Well,
her new series with enclave it's called oceans of time.
And so you see the progression of some of these characters now as adults.
So we're writing these as adult stories.
Oh, fascinating. Okay.
So we're able to carry those readers who fell in love with the books 10 years
ago that are,
they're probably graduated from high school now or have graduated from college
now and they could still enjoy them.
But that's the idea that you have,
the themes are different nature of what they're dealing with is a little
different,
but there is that subtle shift of what works and the irony is that many
adults read Y a just because they're enjoyable. They're good stories.
They're fun.
Well, Steve you've mentioned some of the risks in the general market.
I'm curious if you're willing to go here.
I'm just curious about like some of the opportunities for growth among Christian
fantasy novels, as well as some of the risks, uh,
that you've seen apart from maybe, you know, some, uh, extra biblical ideas of,
uh, the supernatural and angels and demons and things like, uh,
in any interest in touching on like some of the, uh,
some of the areas for caution, uh,
for readers who are trying to find a great book out there. I mean,
it may say it's a Christian book, you know, it's made by a Christian,
but at the same time, especially if we get more and more stories, uh,
there will always be a need for parents and just individual readers, uh,
to be discerning as they wanna find a book that's gonna help em,
glorify God and not just look into themselves for the.
Answers and all of that sort of thing. Well,
there's no real easy answer other than to become a
consistent listener and reader of Laura Haven,
you become one of those curators. Uh,
there's an organization called redeemed reader, for example. Yes.
And it idea of who is out there curating the titles that are
going to work.
Now that would mean you're probably not going to be buying things
when they're brand new, unless you have a particular author that you trust.
This is where you do look at the spine.
Most people don't know who publishes a book.
I love doing this at writer's conferences. I'll ask.
So who's Stephen King's publisher. And of course the room is blank.
They don't care. They don't read Stephen King or they say, okay, John Grham,
again, the room is blank. I said, who's who, okay, who's max Lucado's publisher.
The room is blank. I went, you see, you don't even look.
So I'm saying you need to start looking.
So as a parent or as a reader,
if it says orbit or tour or
Bain or some of these other, you know, Del Ray, you're gonna go, okay,
that's a secular or publisher.
I'm gonna need to dig around and find out is this appropriate story?
Is this something I'm going to enjoy?
But my hope is that if you looked at the spine and saw enclave, you'd go, oh,
I can trust that. I don't have to worry about it. It used to be.
And there were, I still remember this issue back in my, uh,
early Bethany house days, we had a,
a sit down at a convention with eight book sellers
and we had invited them as Bethany house.
We had invited these book sellers to come to us and tell us what Bethany
house was doing. Right. And doing wrong in fiction. It was actually a very,
a very wonderful, very open discussion.
And a couple of the booksellers saying,
I used to be able to trust XYZ publisher. I won't name it,
but they just did a book over here that they had sex
scenes in it as a Christian publishing company for goodness sake,
not does that mean I have to read all those, all their books now,
before I pu I sell them and then said,
but we know we can trust Bethany house. You're not going to sneak something in.
Mm. And I've never forgotten that. That was, I,
I really don't think anyone in that room at the time would realize that I'd be
in this position,
but I've never forgotten that do not break the trust of your
marketplace of your reader. Again, they may disagree.
They might say that book wasn't Christian enough,
or they might say it didn't do for what I was hoping,
but it was still reasonably within the confines
or the boundaries of what would be acceptable to that group. You know,
you can't publish to the most conservative a group because they
wouldn't be reading speculative fiction in the first place.
Steve, I really appreciate that. And it's a good,
quick apologetic of the need existing,
still existing need for gatekeepers.
Some people will lament about the gatekeepers and you're,
you're technically a gatekeeper.
And no matter what side of the gate someone is on,
I think that there is a purpose for keeping the gate. I mean,
it's almost a biblical concept. Uh, the, the pastor,
it's not the same thing as an agent or a publisher,
but the pastor is supposed to guard the church from false teaching.
And that's not just to serve the congregation. It's in obedience to Christ. Uh,
and in your case,
it's just simply knowing who your market is and what their needs are. And then,
uh, helping them serve them and not just through enclave,
but through the nonfiction and other fiction authors, whom you represent.
And be very cognizant of theological drift.
So that things that may have not been on even a conversation
15 years ago are now in the conversation. And you have to say, well,
where do we land on that? Well, we're just not gonna go there.
That's just not gonna be our, our thing.
We're not an apologetics organization. We're not a theological publisher.
We're publishing fiction. Now on my agent side, goodness,
I represent apologi like Nancy Pearcy and William Lane Craig,
and some of these incredibly brilliant thinkers
and let them carry that ball. I mean, I'm there to support them.
So they don't have to think about the business side of their, their, their life.
And to, to say there are some really important people out there,
uh, as thought leaders, we are not necessarily thought leaders,
but we would like to be storyteller leaders.
Well,
and I love the picture of you reading the book by Steven Lawhead and you get to
the end and it's this allegory that everything clicks in your head and it leads
you into a time of worship.
So I even like this idea of storytellers as worship leaders, what,
what a wonderful experience and,
and for an author to lead someone else into worship of God,
through a story that expresses God's own creativity and imagination.
Mm-hmm , I, I,
how many people I've talked to over the years since this present darkness was
published in 1985,
how they were driven to their knees in prayer,
not realizing the nature of principalities and powers, and you're gonna go,
you mean you weren't aware before? Well,
probably hadn't really come up in polite conversation or from the
pulpit, or wasn't talked about in Bible study and then suddenly a,
a man tells a fantastical story,
showing the power of prayer in the supernatural world
as a warrior, in changing how things happened,
you kind of go, whoa, I never thought of it that way. And of course,
there's people who pull it apart and say, it's not theologically correct.
Or it's not, you know, the, the best.
World itself.
exactly. And you just wanna say, that's not the point. The point is,
is read it and then start talking about the
nonfiction elements that have come out.
This has been part of the problem, I think, in all of Christian fiction,
speculative or not in trying to describe it to the
marketplace,
because most people will ask about a book what's it about?
And in a novel people will try to give its nonfiction application.
They will say, oh, that's the adoption novel,
or that's a book about sex trafficking,
or that's a book about the civil war
and you want to go, no, no, what's the story.
What is the story? Tell me the story. Oh,
it's the story of this little child and doing this. And I was like, oh,
now that's interesting.
But when we approach fiction with a non-fiction
mentality, we lose its intent.
Because as I said earlier, we each bring our own story to the story.
And the intent sometimes is different than the author, uh,
originally had planned. And that's the beauty of fiction. Whereas nonfiction,
it's usually pretty well guided where the author is coming to its
conclusion and helping you get there, whether you agree or disagree,
you're on the journey with them. And you can, you can see where they're going,
but with fiction, you're just, you've turned off that part of your brain.
And you're just kind of wallowing in the story at letting it flow through your
brain and you come away going. Huh? That's interesting.
Steve, you mentioned earlier about people who open a,
a Christian made novel and they're like, well, where's the Christ figure.
I mean, I gotta find Jesus in here possibly by name, uh, possibly, you know,
acting just like he does in the Bible.
My thought there has always been that the actual Christ figure in any Christian
made book is hiding in plain sight.
And it's the author Christ figure is simultaneous with the label.
Christine Christi that's Christ figure, literally right there.
One who acts like Christ. And in that case to me,
any heroic character could be described as a Christ figure figure or a Christian
figure. Uh,
it's not necessarily that Jesus is going to be found in the pages that either by
allegory or by name, but the characters are going to act like Christians,
if it is a Christian made book with heroic characters. And so I,
I think that if someone asks then, well, what is the book about, you know,
what is the nonfiction issue? Uh, I think that's great to reframe the question.
What is the story about, uh, what is Maxine justice galactic attorney about?
What's the theme? The theme is Maxine justice, hint.
It's right there in the title. You know, it's like Harry PTA.
What's the book about, uh, it's about Harry Potter? Well,
Maxine justice about Maxine justice,
which is why I always appreciate when a book title is brave enough to put the
character name right there in the title. It's like, it's kind of a brave move.
Like here's an iconic character. Uh,
the book is not about aliens or the legal profession or corruption in the
justice system. As much as it is about Maxine justice.
I will use an example.
Occasionally when I'm teaching this of John Grisham's novel, the firm,
not many people remember it now, cause it's been out so long,
but may some people may remember the film or they might have watched it,
cuz I think Tom cruise was in it,
but you have a character who has to decide to make the
wrong decision and gain the world in wealth
and prestige or do the right thing and have,
and lose it all and be under threat of death.
That is a incredibly Christian moral decision.
Most people didn't know at the time that John Grham is a
Christian teaches fifth grade,
Sunday school at his church and has been on mission trips and all of this,
they didn't realize that he had a Christian background until he wrote his novel.
The Testament many years later, the difference is, is that in the firm,
the man makes the right decision.
He chooses to do the right thing and lose it all and be under a whatever,
whatever, but you're not told why, in my opinion,
what would make the novel, a Christian novel and I'm using air quotes,
a Christian novel is if we understood why,
what was the motivation in the character for making that choice?
Was there something in his background, in his psyche,
in his understanding of life and it could it be that he was a
Christ follower? We don't know it's completely missing in book.
That was not John G's intent.
And of course there's certain scenes that would not be appropriate in a book in
the evangelical market, cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But my point is,
theoretically,
we are talking about the difference where you have a story that ha creates a
moral choice and the author makes the correct or the
character makes the correct choice. But in my opinion,
a Christian novel will somehow let you know why.
Yeah. What is it in that now in fantasy that's a little harder. Cause you know,
there may not be church that may not exist in world that has been
created in this particular story world,
but there's got to be some redemptive elements that come through where you can
see, oh,
this person is of high moral fiber and they make their
decisions based on that.
That's a perfect circle back to the title of this episode about why does
enclave publishing create Christian fantastical fiction?
And now I think we know a little bit more about why currently we've got one
book a month coming out, as you mentioned, Steve, next year,
there's gonna be 15, uh, Lord willing after that, uh,
even more and possibly with that final goal of two new books per month.
And each one of course, thanks to Oasis is also getting a, uh,
audio book as well.
So if you're not able to read so much as listen to your favorite books, uh,
you can get that, uh, through the, uh,
audio book version and that's a simultaneous release, right? It is same days.
The hardcover drops, the audio book drops.
It's it's a lot of work. Oh my goodness.
I cannot imagine.
and it's, uh, it's a little challenging when you have, uh,
books that are 140,000 words,
as you have to realize it's an hour per 10,000 words.
So that's a lot of recording, uh, that has to be done and have,
have it in the production schedule.
So we're having to work that in,
even into our expectations for a book to be finished so that we can have it
ready.
It has to be completely copyedited and proofread before we even get it to the
audio type people. So we can't be like a, um, you know,
an indie author that writes their book,
gets it proof and then publishes it on Thursday.
There's we just has,
you have to back it up because there's an entirely different other process that
has to be added into the, the deal.
And Oasis is still one of the few audio publishers
that still does CDs.
They actually do physical clamshell,
physical CD audio, CDs of people want them.
And it's amazing how much they continue to sell every month in their catalog.
They've got 2000 audios in their catalog.
Incredible. I look forward to finding out more about that, uh.
With they're doing the entire Edgar rice burs, um,
collection in audio and they've never been done in audio to before.
And so they're doing all of those.
Really now. Okay. Yeah.
So like the books that you read or princess and Mars or any, any of them? Yeah.
All of us. Okay.
So we've got 20 some out of them done already in cooperation with the burrows
estate. So they're pretty cool people.
That's fantastic. Well, we'll look forward to, uh,
getting at least one of those cool people in the studio for, uh,
the next episode here in this Steve saga, uh, Steve lobby, you can find, uh,
your agency@stevelobby.com course enclave publishing
enclave, publishing.com. We'll include all those links in the show notes. Uh,
any other action items, uh, for our faithful listeners, uh,
before we send you back down the tunnel.
Buy everything, we got, keep us in business , um,
um, being facetious. But I, I,
we do truly do everything solely DEO Gloria
for the glory of God. This is amen that this is not to put us on any pedestal.
We have the intent of trying to expand and
grow God's kingdom through storytelling in a unique category
in a way that no one else on this planet is doing. And I just think that's a,
uh, a wonderful,
wonderful mission and opportunity for us all.
Well, thanks for joining us, Steve.
And hopefully we get to see more books that show the imagination of
God, the creativity of God, not the literal Jesus,
literally showing up in someone's life, but working through the author to, uh,
demonstrate the universe that God's made,
the laws that he's made and sort of giving that little peak, you know,
into the Christian worldview a little bit. But I like what you said,
that we gotta focus on stories. We,
we gotta focus on the characters and just the experience of the reader of
entering a new world. So, um,
I can't wait to enter more new worlds from enclave. Thanks for joining us today.
Oh, it was a pleasure of mine. Thank you much.
Well, I love Steve's line there. Take us to your reader. So Steven,
I think we've got some messages in the com station. So take us to our listeners.
Absolutely. Lots of folks been excited about this. Steve saga,
it's been shared by Oasis and enclave and other allies in this quest for the
best Christian made fantastical fiction.
One comment comes from Lindsay Luellen who says about the Steve Raza interview
part one of the Steve saga. It was a great interview,
loved the behind the scenes,
look into the library system and how they curate their selection.
Plus the geeky sci-fi space, opera chat very much agreed with that.
There Lindsay writer,
Vanessa also says the Steve saga sounds info-packed indeed it is.
And we aren't even finished yet. Uh,
so far we're about two thirds of the way into the saga.
Stay tuned for a preview of our next episode.
And will this be the end of the Steve saga?
Maybe there may be more we'll have to see.
Well, and as Steve lobby said, great fiction helps you cross the street.
You've never crossed before. So to you, our listener,
we'd love to hear what is a book that helped you cross a new street and just
experienced a whole new world in,
in ways you never thought you could send us a note to podcast Laura haven.com
with your answer to that question, or any thoughts on this episode,
tag us on social media, just look for Laura Haven,
or if you are a member of the Lord Haven Guild,
you can comment in the super secret channel just for fantastical
truth on there. Send us a note.
Speaking of said Guild, you can join this Guild for free,
but only by subscribing free to Lord Haven.
So just go to Lord haven.com and put your email address in the box that pops up.
We've just started our book west.
We do those every month and this new one is for the Hobbit,
the classic fantasy by J R Tolkin. We have gone on an adventure,
but if you stayed behind to try to pack your handkerchief or something else,
that is very Hoy. No worries.
You can run leap the fences storm into the wilds and catch up with our party
of dwarves led by a very sporadic wizard. We're gonna face down Golans and cave,
trolls and wags, and all kinds of things. Just go to Laura haven.com,
enter email address,
and we will send you the secret invitation to join the Laura Haven Guild.
Next on fantastical truth.
Join us for our thrilling conclusion to the Steve saga. For this finale,
you will enjoy amazing adventures of yesterday year in riveting recorded form.
There will be more spaceships and dragons.
You might even soar high above the jungles of Christian publishing on the back
of, uh, sky turtle. Yes, indeed. Our third and final Steve,
at least for now Steve Smith,
the president of Oasis family media will arrive to share more about the
Oasis and what is coming next in this world. Meanwhile,
perhaps you've never heard of enclave publishing,
perhaps you're interested in more of this behind the scenes work that goes into
making these amazing Christian fantastical stories.
We're going to have more conversations with those others,
regardless of whether they're named Steve going forward on fantastical truth and
at Laura Haven.
And we thank God for these women and men who are making these stories,
not just for entertainment or edification, but for the glory of God,
practicing imagination to worship him. We want to join in that goal.
As we continue to seek and find his fantastical truth.