Controversy in Fiction and Nonfiction

I have been told that a writer, if they want to sell books should avoid controversy. If you have read my books, you know I don't subscribe to that idea. The authors I most admire and have modeled my writing after address controversy. Pat Conroy addressed the issue of domestic abuse. Barbara Kingsolver has addressed climate change (in Flight Behavior), abuses of Christian missionaries in Africa (The Poisonwood Bible) and government policies toward addiction (Demon Copperhead). Sue Monk Kidd has addressed racial oppression at a time when so many are seeking to ignore its existence (The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings).

While there is certainly room for a little escapist fiction, there also needs to be room for fiction that helps a reader deal with difficult issues in the context of an enjoyable story. That's what I seek to do:

• In Searching for Eden, I take the reader into a "Wizard of Oz"- like search for a better, more innocent world, but I do it while including romance, humor and an exploration of the human psyche. Iran and Iraq and Syria become places where real people encounter real people as all search for that better world.

• In The Sons and Daughters of Toussaint, in the context of young love, I look at what young people raised in a country full of despair do to find hope for their country and for their own love relationship.

• In The Bridles of Armageddon, I help characters come alive, characters who are caught up in the most intense political conflicts of today and must learn to listen to each other or forgo the opportunity to love.

• In my book of short stories, Fallen Angels: Stories Inspired by the Urban Homeless, I seek to make the homeless people of the street REAL PEOPLE, people who still have hopes and dreams, people who love and support their friends, people who we might even like to meet and become friends with.

• My book of nonfiction, American Heresies: Reclaiming the Faith of Christ from Donald Trump, is, of course, much more direct in addressing controversy. But even there, I am hoping people can find hope in what I write. We CAN reclaim the faith Jesus Christ brought to the world, a faith expressed in love, acceptance and grace, rather than in white nationalism, hate and judgmentalism.

Is all of this too controversial for you? Then I advise you to turn to writers other than myself!