SPEAKER_00: 0:05

My second novel that I came out with last year is called One of Us. And and uh I have a I have a friend who ended up giving it to her grandson or grand nephew or something. Anyway, he was like 14 and he devoured it in two days. I mean it's a full-length novel. And he loved it. And he told his grandmother, he said, I I feel like I've really come to know the person of Jesus so much better by having read this.

SPEAKER_01: 0:35

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines, and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journal. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. We're doing this actually live. I'm so pleased to have with me today author David Gregory, who is the author of Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, A Day with a Perfect Stranger, The Next Level, The Last Christian, and the co-author of the nonfiction, The Rest of the Gospel. After a 10-year business career, he returned to school to study religion and communications, earning master's degree from Dallas Theological Seminary and University of North Texas. David, welcome to the show. I am so glad to have you here. And I am excited to talk about a topic I've never talked about this on this show after almost three years, which is Christian fiction. I know, I mean, correct me if I'm mistaken, that Christian fiction is huge. But first, what got you into Christian fiction?

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

Well, Natasha, thanks so much for having me on. I've been looking forward to to uh chatting with you and and uh spending some time together. Actually, what got me into Christian fiction, I started off writing nonfiction. My very first book was called The Rest of the Gospel, and I co-authored it. It was a Christian living kind of book. And I and I co-authored it with a former pastor named Dan Stone. And um after that I went to seminary and I took a course on creative writing there and another course on creativity. I just got the idea, uh, there was there was some material I wanted to put into book form. And I got the idea, um, why don't you put this into a story form? And so this story kind of started gelling in my mind of just having a modern-day skeptic. Uh, he was in his 30s from Cincinnati, and uh he receives a dinner invitation to dine at a nice Italian restaurant with Jesus of Nazareth. And so he goes expecting a prank by some friends, but at least he'll get a nice Italian meal out of it. And so he goes and sits across from this guy at this table who claims to be Jesus. And he discovers in the course of their five-course meal together, this really is Jesus. And so it's kind of one of those, you know, who would you want to have dinner with, uh, you know, if you could, uh, kind of scenarios, what would you talk to Jesus about if you had him to yourself for two hours? And uh, so that became my first fiction, which was this novella called Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. And uh, so that was that was the launch of my fiction career, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01: 3:31

Huh, I love it. So, what really defines Christian fiction? What are the elements? Because like people can put religious elements or Christian elements in any fiction, right? Like in in my books, I always talk about different uh and their fiction, like different kind of religion. But what like how would a publisher uh classify this, or why would like a bookstore put this under the shelf of Christian fiction?

SPEAKER_00: 3:57

Yeah, most Christian fiction it it tends to be very overtly Christian.

SPEAKER_01: 4:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 4:03

Which which is to say, you know, the the characters are Christians or the characters become come to faith in Christ during the course of the book. Uh it's dealing with very Christian themes. Sometimes Christian fiction comes under criticism because it's it's too overt. And and you know, uh a lot of Christian fiction has has been criticized because it's um it's too preachy. And you know, it it it uh hits the reader over the head with whatever the author wants to to preach, as opposed to just writing a really good story with with people who happen to be Christians. And if there's any message there that the author wants to get across, it's organic to the story, it's organic to the characters, and it doesn't come across as you know, four or five pages of, oh, now let me preach to the reader. And so um that really has been important for me because my desire in writing Christian fiction, which uh I'll get to the story of actually what happened with Dinner with a Perfect Stranger in just a minute. But my desire in writing Christian fiction has always been to write uh fiction that's engaging and entertaining and and hopefully gripping, and and that the reader won't won't want to put down, whether the reader is a Christian or or is not, uh, but they will find it genuinely an interesting book that they like to read. And so that you know involves good story development, good character development, and and if there's if if it's a really a conversational book like Dinner with a perfect stranger is, then truly engaging conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 5:59

So what is the overall message that you hope to achieve from from your books? Do you hope that people will eventually become Christian, or if they're a different religion, convert to Christianity, or what is your like message or or hope, maybe?

SPEAKER_00: 6:15

Yeah, that certainly was my goal, I suppose, with Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. I actually wrote Dinner with a Perfect Stranger right after I finished seminary. And my goal was to produce self-published something that I could just have some copies um of to give to friends and give to family and uh to people that I met and present the message of Christ and the and the person of Jesus Christ in a way that that hopefully they would they would find, as I said, engaging and entertaining and and actually want to read the book. And so that was my whole vision for uh Dinner with a perfect stranger. Well, I had a contact at Random House at their uh Christian publishing division, Waterbrook Press, and so I could send them a copy of my self-published version. And um, so I just said, Hey, I self-published this book, just thought I'd send you a copy if you want to take a look at it. So they got back with me and they said, We want to publish your book. And so I said, Great. And so we signed the contract and they were gonna print 20,000 copies, which is a lot for a unknown author. And uh, well, as it turned out, by the time they the book came out in August of 2005, they printed 200,000 copies.

SPEAKER_01: 7:30

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 7:31

And they launched this huge marketing campaign. It had its own write-up in Wall Street Journal and USA Today and all this other marketing. And I was on like, you know, somewhere between 50 and 100 radio interviews across the country and some some cable TV interviews. And it within a few weeks it hit the New York Times extended bestseller list, and they sold and they sold half a million copies. And so I had this.

SPEAKER_01: 7:59

Um that's amazing. You must be loaded.

SPEAKER_00: 8:05

All of a sudden, I I just wanted a book that I could keep some copies in my garage and hand out to a few people. And all of a sudden, this fiction writing career was dumped in my lap because needless to say, they wanted me to write more. And so I became a fiction writer.

SPEAKER_01: 8:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 8:23

And so since then, I'm on about my eighth book, in addition to the four nonfiction books that I've written. And um, so yeah, my my goal, uh, circling back to your question, my goal in in writing the books has been certainly to present the message of Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ, in in a way that that's clear to people and that uh that hopefully uh they will you know respond to and and in faith, but also present to present the person of Christ in in a way that um, well, actually, in in many of my books, kind of an outside the box manner. I I I I enjoy giving people kind of a different look at at Jesus, and I want that look to be very biblically based. I want, I want honestly, to be able to take anything that's in my books, any conversation or or part of a conversation or whatever, and if somebody comes back and says, Okay, where did you get that from? I I want to be able to point to the gospels or another part of the New Testament or or whatever and say, Well, actually it's it's from it's right here. And so I want it to be very biblically based, but I want it to be, as I said before, uh wrapped in a story that that is a genuine story that will engage people. Uh I don't want people to feel like they're reading a sermon. I want people to feel like they're reading fiction and to to continue to read it for that purpose.

SPEAKER_01: 10:44

Yeah, when I was doing the research uh for this episode, like you have a huge presence online. You have your own Wikipedia page, you're published by Random House, and I was, you know, I was I was impressed. And I was like, wow, I didn't know that Christian authors can like I always thought of it as like this kind of small section of publishing small niche. Um some people might call it like fringe or whatever they want to call it, but uh it's it's actually huge. And it reminds me of the book that came maybe, I don't know, 10-15 years ago, The Shack. And it was a Christian uh fiction, correct?

SPEAKER_00: 11:23

Correct, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 11:24

And I think that was one of the books, and and you I would go, I live outside of DC and used to work in DC, take the metro, go the metro, and people are reading the shack on the train too. Like you might think of DC as like a heathen city or whatever, but like people were on the train reading the shack, and uh it was uh even like one of my colleagues who was like an Iraqi Muslim, he was like obsessed with that book.

SPEAKER_00: 11:49

Well, it doesn't surprise me, it it sold 20 million copies, so uh, we almost all know somebody that's read it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

Exactly. I have it somewhere here. And my question: do you think the sh the shack, that book, changed the perspective of Christian fiction and made it more into the mainstream and made more publishers, big publishers, keen on publishing uh Christian fiction? Did it change if there was a stigma against it? I'm not sure, but if there was a stigma, do you think that book removed that's that stigma, especially among the the top five publishers?

SPEAKER_00: 12:23

Yeah, that that I think that's likely to be the case. I mean, Christian fiction is is something that kind of I don't know, know that it even existed in you know the 50s and maybe in the 60s a bit. I mean, it's not to say that Christian fiction had not been written before. I mean, the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan was written, you know, what, in the 1600s. And it is one of the best-selling books of all time. Uh C.S. Lewis is famous for his Christian fiction. C. S Lewis A.R. Tolkien. But as a as a as an industry segment, I think you're right. Christian fiction kind of began arising in the in the 70s, but slowly. And so I think the Shaq probably had a lot to do with the with the explosion of of Christian fiction as and and the more of the mainstream acceptance of it as as a you know legitimate uh uh segment of the industry. Uh even before the Shaq, the Left Behind series by Tim La Hague.

SPEAKER_01: 13:26

About the rapture, right?

SPEAKER_00: 13:27

Yes, about had the same effect. I mean, they sold tens of millions of copies of the city.

SPEAKER_01: 13:33

I have it here, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:35

And so uh yeah, there have been various uh and then really successful authors that that published numerous books that were very successful, like Ted Decker came along, and and so there have been very successful Christian authors who who have developed series and uh that that you know have have have really highlighted the the the uh that segment of the industry. I actually have a funny story about the shack. I I had a friend in Oregon when I was living there who said, Hey, I want you to come over one Sunday afternoon and and meet this guy. And so uh it was just uh a con uh an association he had with this fellow, and his name was Wayne Jacobson. And so uh I came over, we had a very nice lunch together, etc. Well, a day later or so, Wayne drives back down to California, which is where he's from, and uh on the way he called me and he said, Hey, I've got this friend that's written this manuscript. Would you be willing to read it? So I said, sure. And so this was kind of after my you know 15 minutes of fame with uh Dinner with a perfect stranger. And so uh so he sent it to me and I read it, and I got back with him and and I said, I I think this is great. I I I think this book could really go places. Well, the book was The Shack.

SPEAKER_01: 14:57

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 14:58

And so he said, Would you be willing to endorse The Shack? And so uh I said, sure. And so when the book came out originally, the self-published version that sold about a million copies, it had uh it was self-published. Before Hashette, the huge book publisher, took it over. And so it was hugely successful before even before a major publisher took it. And so um, in any case, the original self-published version came out with three endorsements on the cover. Uh one was by Eugene Peterson, who wrote The Message and a bunch of other books. And uh one was by um, oh now his name, um, not John Michael Talbot, uh Michael W. Smith, the Christian uh uh music artist. And then the other one was by me. And then when Hashet took it over, they bumped me to the inside cover. I mean, the inside endorsements. There were like four pages of inside endorsements, and they put Winona in in in in in place of me, her endorsement. And so uh that was actually useful to me. It kind of helped me to see where I placed in life. I was somewhere between Winona and nobody. So, you know, uh that was a good judge.

SPEAKER_01: 16:19

No, but you know, things can change. So wow, that's fascinating. Okay. So now, you know, I I'm a like a journalist by training, and I I like to ask you know, kind of tough questions. They're not really that tough, but let's see. So buckle up. I listened, I listen to a lot of podcasts with authors and publishers, because you know, that's what I do for a living. You know, I publish my books, I talk to authors, whatever. I rarely see a podcast or like a mainstream podcast talk or host a Christian author. Uh is that is it, do you think I am correct in this observation? And if I am, why do you think so?

SPEAKER_00: 17:03

Honestly, I have no idea. So so so what what you're saying is that you see cot podcasts that are centered around authors, but not podcasts that are just focused on Christian authors.

SPEAKER_01: 17:14

Or they don't actually invite Christian authors to the podcast, or they think their audience would not be interested in that. Because that's like very, very niche for especially when you think of the current political situation in this country where like the publishing scene is tend to be like mostly in like cities that are liberal, more in the agnostic side. And then then for them to bring a Christian author, they think the audience might not respond well to that. Is is that correct observation?

SPEAKER_00: 17:50

Yeah, I think I I think both of the things you cited. I think number one, the person who's actually doing the podcast may just not be that interested. Um or may not be particularly aware, like you said before, it's like, oh, this this is a bigger part of the industry than I ever knew.

SPEAKER_01: 18:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:07

And they may not honestly be aware of who the the significant Christmas or the leading Christmas authors may be, or uh who interesting ones would be to to chat with. And so, you know, you can't fault somebody for that. Uh, but I think too, there's there may be uh a um uh there may be an assumption that my audience isn't going to be that interested in this. And so I I think probably that comes into play too, that I think that's very likely.

SPEAKER_01: 18:35

Do you get invited on podcasts that are not Christian leaning?

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

Yes, I I have been invited to do many such podcasts that are not Christian leaning, including some that have been overseas. Uh one one from India, I remember in particular. And um, so uh yeah, I I really enjoy doing both. And I find that I can have you know good conversations in both contexts, and and so yeah, it both of them are are work well with me.

SPEAKER_01: 19:08

All right. So I want to talk about your audience. I think that's a segue to this. Who is your audience? Who's your audience? Or who do you wish to be your audience? Because you know the saying, like preaching to the converted. So so uh literally, yeah. Who is your audience? Who reads this book, the already converted or the the skeptics, or the people who are questioning? Like, who do you think is mainly your audience?

SPEAKER_00: 19:36

Mostly I think my audience is I if if you had to to uh digenthole my audience, they would be uh the primary audience would be female Christians between the ages of uh 35 and and 70.

SPEAKER_01: 19:53

Huh. Why is that? Why female?

SPEAKER_00: 19:55

I say that because about 80% of the readers of Christian books are women, or maybe just books in general. But yeah, I do know that about 80% of the readers of Christian books are women. And I say, you know, skewing to a somewhat older demographic, in large part because young people just don't read as much these days. And so you know, people that are 35 and older, they simply read more than people, you know, 15 to 35. When whenever I um, you know, uh I came out with a book a year ago called uh my second full length novel. Most of my books have been short, novellas, hundred to hundred and fifty pages. Yeah. But uh called my second novel that I came out with last year is called One of Us. And and uh I have a I have a friend who ended up giving it to her grandson or grand granddephew or something. Anyway, he was like 14 and he devoured it in two days. I mean, it's a full-length novel. And he loved it. And he told his grandmother, he said, I I feel like I've really come to know the person of Jesus so much better by having read this. And so I've gotten really good feedback from younger people who have read uh some of my books, but I recognize they're not the main people who are picking them up. And so I think for the most part, my books are are picked up by by other Christians, some people who aren't Christians, which is great. And but I think uh, or at least my hope is always that, you know, if a Christian picks up one of my books and and really likes it and thinks it will appeal to one of their friends that's not a Christian, then I always love to hear that that they've you know given it away or or given a new one to them as a gift or whatever. And um I've really had the fantastic privilege various times. I was on a flight a couple of years ago from uh Florida back to Houston, and uh so I was I was talking with this guy who was sitting in the in the seat uh in the row ahead of me, and we were just chatting back and forth, and I said, What do you do for a living? And he told me blah, blah, blah. And uh so he said, What do you do for a living? And I said, Well, I'm an author. What kind of books do you write? Well, these kinds, you know, and you know, tell me something you've written. So I said, Well, my best-selling book was a little book called Dinner with a Perfect Stranger, and his eyes get big and his jaw drops, and he said, You've got to be kidding. God used that book to help bring me to faith in Christ. And this was a Jewish guy. So I I'm I'm the recipient of stories like that from people from time to time, either in person or email or whatever. And so that's always a thrill to hear, oh, look, my book really impacted somebody in a really significant way.

SPEAKER_01: 22:41

And how receptive are bookshops to stalking Christian books, uh, like mainstream bookstores like Barnes Noble and and and other independent stores. And you don't see them like in the front of the bookstore, like or editor's pick or whatever, because I go to Bar Noble all the time and I just browse. You don't you won't see that unless it was the shack. Only the shack.

SPEAKER_00: 23:05

Unless it was the shack. They put that one up there.

SPEAKER_01: 23:08

The shack, yeah. Yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

Well, I think realistically there there is a uh religion section in virtual virtually every bookstore. Uh some of them might have, you know, a larger religion religion section that is broken down into, you know, Christian and then, you know, other religions or whatever. And sometimes, you know, they will have the the subsections, and and oftentimes one of the big subsections is Christian fiction. And so I've certainly walked into bookstores where you know the Christian fiction um section is really quite large. I mean, row after row after row after row. And so um I think in particular the half-price books, the huge there's a huge used bookstore in Dallas on half-price books, and uh the Christian fiction section in half-price books just goes on forever. But Dallas is kind of right there in the Bible belt, and there are a lot of Christians there, and so those books would sell well there.

SPEAKER_01: 24:11

Do you think they would ever put them in the regular fiction section? Like if I go to the fiction section where there's, I don't know, Stephen King and whatever, and would we would they stock them right next to them? Or would they always put them under the religion section?

SPEAKER_00: 24:26

My experience has been that they're almost always in a section called Christian fiction within the religion section.

SPEAKER_01: 24:32

Uh, but it won't be within the fiction section.

SPEAKER_00: 24:35

Not within the fiction section.

unknown: 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:37

Which is it's it's it's a curious observation.

SPEAKER_00: 24:40

It is, yeah. I've never really thought about that. You're right. Um yeah, they tend to put it in the religion section, not within the fiction section. Which, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 24:49

Okay. Yeah. But yeah. Anyways, so what are you working on these days?

SPEAKER_00: 24:54

Well, actually, when it comes to books, um, the book that I'm currently working on is kind of a fairy tale book. Um I've never really written uh a children's book before, and this really isn't a children's book so much as it is a book that's kind of a children's story that's that both children and adults could read.

SPEAKER_01: 25:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 25:17

And so uh it's kind of more like along the lines of maybe uh the little prince or something like that, that you know, a 10-year-old could read, but a f a 50-year-old could just as easily read and and and get more out of it than the 10-year-old did. And so uh so I'm working on that at the moment. Uh mostly this last year, I've kind of been involved in marketing my the latest book that I wrote called One of Us. And um so I'm also uh one of my I've been working on uh helping sell my first full-length novel called The Last Christian as a possible streaming series in Hollywood. A guy from Hollywood contacted me exactly a year ago, actually, emailed me, and said, I read your book, The Last Christian. I thought it was fantastic. I want to uh see if I can develop it into a streaming series out here. And so he wrote a pilot script and uh put together a pitch deck for it, and so I helped him, you know, edit the script and so forth. And so uh that is in process. And uh, in addition to that, I've had various people express interest in my latest book, called One of Us, um, as a possible either movie or streaming series. And so I seem to be kind of moving in that direction of uh of hopefully some of my uh some of my material. Well, three of my books have already been put into movie form. Dinner with a perfect stranger, um uh and it's two sequels, A Day with the Perfect Stranger and Night with the Perfect Stranger. Feature films have all been made of those uh from uh an independent uh by an independent film producer in Louisville named Jefferson Moore. And uh that too just came totally out of the blue. He emailed me one day and said, uh, this is back in 2005, and said, I read your self-published version of Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. I want to make a movie of it. And so um, so I said, Great. So we signed a contract. This is how everything seems to happen with me. So I said, great, we signed a contract, he made a movie and sold tons of DVDs. This was back in 2005, and uh it aired a zillion times on uh Turner uh excuse me, Trinity Broadcasting Network, TBN, and um and so have its sequels and and so the movies have really gotten uh got quite a large audience both in DVD form and and uh and on cable.

SPEAKER_01: 27:49

Wow. Well if you need anyone to play Mary.

SPEAKER_00: 27:52

Yeah, you'd be great.

SPEAKER_01: 27:54

Since I'm the original Arab Christian, I'm from the Holy Land. So you'd be great for it. So uh do you still have the same publisher, which is uh Random House?

SPEAKER_00: 28:06

Let's see. Random House published four of my books. One, two, three, four. Yes. The last one was The Last Christian, my first full-length novel. Uh I had a book published by Harvest, uh one book published by uh couple books published by a couple of fairly artistic publishers, but not huge mainstream publishers. Harvest House Publishers and Tyndale uh House Publishers. And another one published by Worthy Publishing out of Nashville. And so those have been my my you know kind of traditional publishing route. I've also self-published several of my books. My latest book, which uh I'd love for this the movie thing to to uh to occur, uh, I self-published. And so I I also have a decent amount of experience uh going the self-published route. All of my nonfiction books I self-published.

SPEAKER_01: 29:00

Uh so it's interesting, like you got a publisher from like one of the top five, which is a dream for authors, and then you went back and self-published. I'm curious why.

SPEAKER_00: 29:10

Well, mostly it was just because out of necessity, uh because my uh I'm I'm kind of the uh the opposite of of how most people's career developed. My huge career success happened right at the beginning, and as I said, it was a total shock to me. And so as I continued to write for various reasons, you know, my my my sales success was not as much as it had been before. And so I got to the point to where in the last uh my last uh book that was published by a mainstream publisher was 2016, and so I've been self-publishing for the last nine years. And so um the market has changed so much, and so publishers are are really looking for you know certain things from an author. They're looking, obviously, for a really good book, but in addition to that, they want either a recent track record of really good sales, which I no longer had, or they want somebody with a ready-made platform. And so, you know, if you're a mega church pastor and you have 20,000 people coming to your church every Sunday, and you know, probably another 100,000 listening on on radio or or podcasts to you or whatever, then it's like, okay, well, there's a ready-made audience.

SPEAKER_01: 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:33

In addition, uh, obviously, in in today's climate of social media, if you have a huge YouTube following or or Instagram following or whatever, well, that doesn't really uh I mean I'm on those those uh those media, but but I don't have huge followings by any means. And so a publisher, basically so much of the of the marketing of books has been has gone from something the publisher does, which was the traditional route, to now even if you get published by a traditional publisher, unless you're a huge name, you know, if you're uh, you know, Donald Trump and uh, you know, you come out after your your current term with a book, well, you know, you don't have to do much to to market it. But if you're not a huge name, then um then you're expected to do most of the marketing for it, even though the you've got a traditional publisher is publishing. And so really it it presents additional challenges to authors because being a good writer isn't isn't enough anymore. You have to be a good marketer too. But it also presents some opportunities because if you go the self-publishing route, essentially you're doing the marketing work that you would have to do if you were published by a traditional publisher anyway, and you're giving getting to keep more of the profits. And so there are pluses and minuses to the changes that have come to the industry.

SPEAKER_01: 32:01

And what is like in terms of what moved the needle for you in terms of marketing, what was your kind of the highest ROI?

SPEAKER_00: 32:11

I'm not sure that anything has really moved the needle. Um because I'm not that great of a marketer.

SPEAKER_01: 32:20

But like if you look at the books, it's you're self-published and me too. So I I look at those the KDP reports page and and see, do you think like especially now where many authors they say like put clips on TikTok or go on podcasts, where do you feel you're getting the most traction?

SPEAKER_00: 32:40

Honestly, I think I'm getting most traction simply by word of mouth. And so I think these podcast the podcasts that I'm on probably help because you know, just simply exposure uh to and and putting books in the into the hands of people that um that I think, okay, I genuinely think they're gonna be interested in this book, and this is somebody that could actually let a decent number of other people know about the book, uh, I think that has been perhaps the the most effective thing for me.

SPEAKER_01: 33:15

So we know that authors are big readers. So what do you read? Do you read only Christian fiction? And if not, if mainstream fiction, if you want to call it that way, um who is who you think influenced you the most? Or like somebody that you really like to read?

SPEAKER_00: 33:33

Well, this this is gonna sound ridiculous for a Christian, uh for excuse me, for a fiction author to say, I read very little fiction. I just I'm not primarily a fiction reader. I'm primarily a nonfiction reader. About everything I read is nonfiction. And that's that's always the way I've been. And so among the fiction writers that I've really liked a lot, I would say the one that historically appealed to me the most was Michael Crichton. I loved Michael Crichton's work. I really enjoyed um Dan Brown's work, the author of the Da Vinci Code, and and you know, actually I'm reading a Dan Brown book right now called Dissection Point. I mean, the Da Vinci Code uh was complete nonsense from a historical perspective. I remember listening to when the Da Vinci Code came out, I remember listening to a radio show, and the author, the uh the host of the show was was interviewing somebody who was a uh historian, uh I mean an expert in like early church history, first century history, you know, so forth. And he said, okay, you know, Dan Brown kind of talks about a lot of historical stuff in his book, you know, the uh the Da Vinci Code. How much of it is actually true? And and the expert said, Well, Paris is a real city, and and Leonardo da Vinci is was a real painter.

SPEAKER_01: 35:06

That's it. Yeah, but actually think of it, Da Vinci Code was sort of a Christian fiction.

SPEAKER_00: 35:12

I mean, it was a lot about the Catholic Church and it had a lot of religious uh subject matter in it, but it definitely wasn't Christian fiction. If anything, it was anti-Christian fiction. But it was a real thing's turn. I really loved reading it. But it was Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:27

I I was obsessed with it, I remember. And like it made me understand Rome better, you know, and their the Catholic Church and the traditions, and um so it's I think it kind of sent a message somehow. Uh but yeah. Wow. Um so David, this has been uh wonderful. Um, and how can people reach you, buy your books? Uh if they want to make a movie out of your book, how can anyone I remember? I'm Mary.

SPEAKER_00: 35:57

So it's just um actually in my latest book, One of Us, there is a Mary character, and she is she is the mother of Jesus. Um it's placed in the present tense, and so essentially it's this the story from of the four gospels put in 21st century America. And so the Jesus character is Manuel, and um he's uh uh Mexican American from uh auto mechanic from McAllen, Texas. And his mother is lives in the Rio Grande Valley as well. Her name is Maria. So you can be Maria.

SPEAKER_01: 36:34

Yeah, I'd be Maria. I speak Spanish as well, so I can manage.

SPEAKER_00: 36:39

So if somebody wants to uh look into any of my books further, uh I'd love for them to visit my website, which is davidgregorybooks.com, or they can um uh contact me through the website anytime. And all my books are up on Amazon. Uh various of them are in uh other places like uh bn.com or wherever books are usually sold.

SPEAKER_01: 37:03

That's great. Thank you, David. This has been enlightening, fun, and as I said, it's it's a unique episode because you're the first uh Christian author on this podcast. And uh for anyone watching or listening, thank you for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. And until we meet again.

SPEAKER_00: 37:21

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01: 37:25

Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Times. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time.