My love for writing is rooted in a lifelong love of reading books. My mom used to take my brother and me to the library all the time when we were kids, and I used to come back with stacks and stacks of books. My father was in the Air Force so we moved to different cities every four years, from Texas to Guam to California to South Carolina and back to Texas, but one of the constants in my childhood were a good book and a lazy afternoon. That's one of the big reasons why I'm such an advocate for children's reading programs --- it really opens up another world to young imaginations.

I attended college at the University of Houston and majored in Communications, with the plan to one day work in the television industry. During my junior year, however, I took both a feature writing and a screenwriting class that whetted my appetite for writing, and I began toying with an idea for a novel. After graduation, I went to work on that novel, writing after work in coffee shops and on weekends for seven months. I guess you could say that the writing bug had bitten me, and as anyone who has experienced this phenomenon knows --- the writing bug has sharp teeth.

The fruit of that labor was a self-published work that eventually opened the door to a book contract. (And the writing bug continues to bite...)

Reading and writing aside, I'm also a huge sports enthusiast, and living in the diverse city of Houston gives me the opportunity to attend just about any kind of sporting event you can imagine. My favorite sport is basketball, although I've taken a recent interest in tennis. And one day, I'll tee off with Tiger at Pebble Beach. He'll beat me rather resoundingly, of course, but that's beside the point.

My favorite authors from childhood are F.W. Dixon and Beverly Cleary. Dixon was the author of The Hardy Boys detective series, and I'm sure that I've read every one of those books. (Must've been hundreds)

My favorite authors now are Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, Brad Meltzer and Vince Flynn. Frank Peretti, who's written This Present Darkness, Piercing the Darkness, and The Visitation, among other books, has had the greatest impact on me as a writer of Christian fiction; his sense of storytelling is unparalleled, and the way he subtly weaves the hope of Christ throughout his stories is something that I strive to do.

Ted Dekker is just as good; his novel When Heaven Weeps is probably my all-time favorite book. I throw Meltzer and Flynn into the mix of my favorite authors because I love political thrillers, and those authors keep me turning the pages well into the night.

My Favorite Websites:
http://www.espn.com
This is kind of self-explanatory to all of us who love sports; clicking on this website is almost as good as watching "ESPN" on television.

http://www.google.com
This site has helped me in ways you couldn't believe when I'm researching information for books. I have yet to enter a term that Google couldn't find correlating web pages on. It especially helped in writing A Man Inspired, which is primarily set in Los Angeles. Though I've been to L.A. several times, accessing street names and directions from this search engine was a cinch.

http://www.cnn.com
I'm always checking in here to get the current events or news around the world.

Derek Jackson lives in Houston, Texas.

Books by Derek Jackson

Brother Word

by Derek Jackson