Authors Corner: "Finding Angel" by Kat Heckenbach

Darkness can’t be brought into the light without being extinguished…but when light is brought into the darkness, it will continue to shine.   

When you arrive at Kat Heckenbach’s website, you know you’ve landed someplace just a little weird.

From the eye peering out between flowers, to the picture of what seems to be a howling moon with the above quote, it grabs your interest.

And so will her writing.

Heckenbach—mother of two, Magna Cum Laude college graduate (BS, Biology), cancer survivor and article writer for biblically based periodicals—never thought she’d end up being in a category reserved for few: “a Christian who writes fantasy/horror.” It just didn’t seem to fit together.

But she’s found a delicate balance, and a great way to share her faith with her readers. She recalls:

“I realized in the summer of 2007 that I needed to combine my varied passions into one pursuit, writing. I began with an idea that’s appealed to me since childhood—a hidden world where magic and mythical creatures are real. The result is Finding Angel, a Young Adult Fantasy that combines science, magic, and faith.

I soon discovered I was paddling upstream by trying to pitch a fantasy that doesn’t lie solidly in either the Christian or secular market. I started looking for other roads to publication. By the end of 2008, I had begun writing—and selling—personal experience stories to denominational publications. Before long, my stories were making it into anthologies such as The Ultimate Christian Living.

Then came short fiction including fantasy and stories related to my yet unpublished book, Finding Angel. They’ve found a place in Digital Dragon, ResAliens, and Mindflights. My darker fiction has appeared in several secular speculative fiction magazines and anthologies, both online and in print.

But the novel version of Finding Angel is still at the heart of my writing. I’m presently working on the sequel. God is leading me down a different publishing path than I expected, but I’m enjoying the new journey and have discovered a wonderful world in writing short fiction.”

Heckenbach’s work recently caught the attention of a reporter for one of the two mainstream newspapers in her area of Florida. Read more about this very interesting lady here in the Brandon News.

To check out Kat’s weird and wonderful flights of fantasy and darkness that's appealing to both adults and youth, start with these:

“The Artist” (fantasy) at Mindflights;
“Eyes on the Hilltop” (mainstream) at Christian Fiction Online. 

Or go to her website, www.findingangel.com, for a complete listing of her work, and to keep an eye out for the publication of Finding Angel.

The author of this blog 20-20 Faith Sight, Sheryl Young, has also written a book, What Every Christian Should Know about the Jewish People. See info in column at right.