Meet and Greet Kent King -- Guest post!

Kent King: Writer-Musician-Storyteller & Dabbler

Back in August, Susan made a gracious offer to feature an ACFW member on Mondays and after writing her back and telling her that I was willing…well, the rest is before you.

BEEN THERE: born in the "city of angels"; graduated from high school in Texas; parents were professional musicians and basically grew up on the road; played tennis & got a scholarship to college; graduated from college in 1970 with a BS (still all I've got...the BS I mean)

DONE THAT: tennis coach and pro (teaching); car salesman (got the checkered coat to prove it); Boy Scout Professional; teacher; association executive (Texas and Missouri); currently CEO of a state teacher association; motivational public speaker and columnist (25 years); former tea house/bistro co-owner (washed a lot of dishes)

LIKE THIS: musician (playing live & home recording studio); novelist (2 fiction novels completed and third half finished); reading; fishing (as long as it's from the bank of a good pond); cooking; living in Columbia, Missouri (the Show Me state)

LOVE 'EM: wife Becky (met her in college where she saved me from myself); 2 kids (Kellye & Christopher) and four grandkids; momma is still around and just turned 100);  

LOOKIN' FORWARD: to retirement; more music; more readin', writin' and less 'rithmatic; more fishing; finally growin' up!

REMEMBERING GOD: deacon, Sunday teacher; small group leader; praise team musician and servant/shepherd when needed.

I hope that gave you a taste of who I am. I forgot to add that I’m retiring in June of 2012 to take up fulltime writing (books and music) while making myself available to speak, play, sing and generally share the gospel whenever and wherever God opens a door. My impending retirement led me to the decision to self-publish rather than take the slower traditional route of securing an agent and or an invitation to submit to a Christian publishing house. The three year cycle from submission to shelf means I would be sixty-six if I sent the manuscript in tomorrow.

One of the most positive aspects of being an ACFW member, I had an editor from a major publishing house ask for my manuscript at the 2009 ACFW conference in Denver, as well as several beneficial workshops. The networking was a major addition to my attendance.

Subsequently, I worked with a well known independent editorial group and they were a great help as I put the finishing touches to both books. Oddly enough, the enlightening process of truly publishing as compared to the vanity press alternative has been a major plus, as my books have received my total attention in every aspect. Book  cover design, web site,e-book conversion, ISBN numbers, etc. It didn't dampen my spirits, it simply reinforced the fact that my writing was good enough to be published. Most importantly, it was the fleece that God wanted me to tell these stories.

Encouraged by not one, but two editors of our association’s quarterly magazine, one of them a published fiction author herself, I embarked on the journey of writing in 1994 and after dusting off a forgotten, finished manuscript (1995) updated to the present. Shadow Veil is a supernatural thriller featuring current world events that unfold to a dramatic conclusion that mirrors what is unfolding in the media today. It also reflects the spiritual protection and warfare that goes on out of human vision. I’ll admit that my inspiration for this style came from reading Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness in the early 1990’s.

My second novel, West Of Eden, is a part one of an apocalyptic fantasy set 600 years in the future, featuring a half-breed Indian boy and a rumspringa Amish girl on a journey that brings them into contact with three surviving cultures of human society, American Indians, the Amish and city kingdoms. There is a fourth cast of mythical hybrid creatures (centaurs, gargoyles, lycanthropes, etc.) that were cloned from the cells of men. The storyline goes beyond the typical fantasy swashbuckling and adventure and ties in the critical importance of relationships and attitudes as we try to follow Christ’s command to love one another as we love Him.

Musically, I’ll be offering 30 years worth of songs that I produced from scratch in styles from rock, pop, salsa and my two favorites, jazz and R&B. All of these will be available online and downloadable from my website at kent-king.com. It is still under construction, but I hope to have this site up and running before the end of the year and both my finished novels available as an e-book online at Amazon and I-books. I’ll have paperbacks available as well from my website and at events where I’m presenting. The site features writer’s resources available to writers and musicians and I’m willing to share the tough task of doing all the trials and tribulations involved in self-publishing your own works (no vanity press or packages to choose from here). It has been tedious and awkward at times when you do everything, but you need to know that it is doable.

Thanks for sharing a few moments with me and thank you again Susan for letting me on you blog.

Kent