I’m so excited that my favorite comedic author Matt Mikalatos has another book out (remember Imaginary Jesus?)!! He has graciously agreed to an interview and is giving away one copy of Night of the Living Dead Christian here on my blog. Here’s the scoop:

What does a transformed life actually look like?
In his follow-up to the critically acclaimed Imaginary Jesus, Matt Mikalatos tackles this question in an entertaining and thought-provoking way—with MONSTERS!!! While Christians claim to experience Christ’s resurrection power, we sometimes act like werewolves who can’t control our base desires. Or zombies, experiencing a resurrection that is 90 percent shambling death and 10 percent life. Or vampires, satiating ourselves at the expense of others. But through it all we long to stop being monsters and become truly human—the way Christ intended. We just can’t seem to figure out how.
Night of the Living Dead Christian is the story of Luther, a werewolf on the run, whose inner beast has driven him dangerously close to losing everything that matters. Desperate to conquer his dark side, Luther joins forces with Matt to find someone who can help. Yet their time is running out. A powerful and mysterious man is on their trail, determined to kill the wolf at all costs . . .
By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Night of the Living Dead Christian is a spiritual allegory that boldly explores the monstrous underpinnings of our nature and tackles head-on the question of how we can ever hope to become truly transformed.

I asked Matt to answer a few questions for us and I really enjoyed learning more about Matt and his heart for living the Christian life from this interview. He’s such a cool guy! I’m blessed to know him.

Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into writing?

My name is Matt Mikalatos, as you no doubt guessed already. I live in the Portland, Oregon, area with my wife Krista and our three daughters. We always told the kids that they would never get a cat because of allergies, but a few weeks ago we caved. So we now have a cat named Her Majesty Princess Amber. My “day job” is working for Campus Crusade for Christ, overseeing our international missions work from the northwest area of the United States.

As far as writing goes, I started writing for my theater group in high school. I got increasingly serious about it in college, which is when I wrote my first screenplay, which I’m happy to say is hidden in a vault beneath the Pentagon where no one will ever, ever see it. Writing became my hobby, and soon enough I had written a fantasy novel (also in the vault). Eventually I started getting little articles published here and there and then, through a series of amazing events, I landed my first book deal!

What is the best part of being an author?

Can I have three “best things”?

One, I love the author community. For instance, I was introduced to Jamie because we have the same agent, and he sent an email that said, “You guys need to know each other.” And he was right! Jamie is just as delightful as you suspect she would be from reading her books and her blog. It’s fun to be a part of the writing community. (Aww, thanks Matt! That is really sweet!)

Two, it’s super fun to interact with people who have actually read your work and love it. Or hate it. Basically, it’s great to have your work out there, influencing and delighting people.

Three, writing is fun. It’s hard work, sure. But the fact is that it was my hobby before I became a professional, and anytime you get a couple of dollars for doing something that you love, that’s gotta be nice. What if I got paid for watching television or eating pizza? It’s like that.

What are your inspirations for your books? What was the inspiration for your new release, Night of the Living Dead Christian?

At the risk of sounding like every Christian author ever, I have to say that I love G.K. Chesterton. There aren’t many authors who can deftly use humor to reveal deep truths about human nature and theology, and that’s something he did quite well in his fiction

Night of the Living Dead Christian came about as I was wrestling with questions about how to experience transformation in my spiritual life. Here I was, a Christian, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and wrestling with the fact that I kept doing wrong things, sometimes even when I didn’t really want to. I started looking around at my friends and thinking, “Do we not know how to experience spiritual transformation?”

Please tell us a little about your new book.

The main character in Night of the Living Dead Christian is a man named Luther. He has an anger problem, and it’s causing enormous problems in his marriage and his home. To make matters worse, when he gets angry enough, he turns into a vicious werewolf. The family has tried to work around this, but recently he crossed a line and his wife has wisely taken their child and moved out. Meanwhile, a werewolf hunter has discovered his identity and is setting out to kill him. So Luther needs to find a solution to his werewolf problem if he wants to save his marriage and his life. Enter neighborhood watch officer, Matt Mikalatos (that’s right, it’s me, the author of the book), who offers to help our hapless werewolf. They team up with the neighborhood vampire, a mad scientist, an android, and a half-zombie to take Luther to the only place he can get help — to the most terrifying place possible — church!

Night of the Living Dead Christian is a unique and interesting title. Do you have a favorite part? Favorite character? And/or background story about this title?

NLDC is a comedy novel that teaches theology. It’s a lot of fun, and there were plenty of times when I laughed out loud while I was writing it. I enjoyed pushing myself to enjoy the book by taking it to places that were surprising even for me as the author, which made it a real joy to sit down at the computer some days. What ended up becoming one of my favorite parts of the book came from being stuck in real frustration. I rewrote the beginning of the book about six times. We’re talking about 40 chapters or so of writing that got largely thrown out, partly because I couldn’t get the exact right balance on the voice. I felt like the humor was outweighing the very serious nature of what was going on for Luther in the story, and almost making light of his troubles, which I didn’t want to do. So, eventually, the solution that stuck was to have “interlude” chapters where Luther shared his thoughts about things in the first person. He’s an intelligent and well-read skeptic, so the shift in voice to an erudite, angry, almost anti-Christian character was a challenge as well as being, in a strange way, refreshing… to ask the deepest, hardest questions of the Christian faith without a filter or a “but deep down I know God is sovereign” in sight. They are, I think, the best written parts of the book.

My favorite character is probably the next-door-neighbor who happens to be a vampire. She’s nominally Christian, but still embraces her vampire nature when it suits her. She has a complex back story and quickly became someone who did whatever she wanted, regardless of what her author (yes, that’s me) wanted her to do. In fact, there was one line of hers that my editor suggested we change and I remember thinking, “There’s no way Lara will say that.” It’s pretty amazing when your characters take on a life of their own.

LOL! Boy can I relate to that! Sometimes my side characters try to steal the lime-light from my main characters – they all become so real. 

What are you working on next?

Ah, the eternal question. I have a few things in the pipeline, so let me share two:

One, I am seriously considering writing a Christmas novella (inspired by Jamie, as a matter of fact) called “Merry Gentlemen.” it’s about three best friends who get together just before Christmas, and, through a series of events, make a decision to use their resources to make Christmas something meaningful for each of them and the people around them. This is kicked off when one of the friends is sharing his sense of hopelessness after his recent return from Iraq, where he lost one of his men and most of the use of one of his legs. As each of the friends finds their “project” for Christmas, their lives are changed in miraculous ways as they share the message of peace on earth and goodwill to humankind.

Two, I’ve written a fantasy novel for kids (for my kids as a matter of fact) that I’m debating making available. My kids are desperate to let their friends read it. It’s called “The Sword of Six Worlds” and it’s about Validus Smith and her best friend, Alex Shields, who are having a very strange Wednesday. First their regular teacher goes missing, replaced by a creepy substitute. Then two new kids arrive in class, with strange names and even stranger behavior. The monstrous substitute tries to kill Validus, saying that she’s a “paladin” and that he can’t allow her to try to save the worlds, plural, from a creeping enemy called the Blight and that she wouldn’t have a chance anyway, since the Sword of Six Worlds, the powerful weapon of the paladins, has been broken. Validus and Alex escape with the help of the new kids in class, who take them to another world, where it turns out that the new kids are, in fact, talking animals in disguise. The substitute monster-thing is hot on their trail, and the kids are separated in the chaos. Now Validus and Alex are both working hard to find the Sword, defeat the Blight, save the worlds and return home. All in a day’s work for a paladin… except that Validus isn’t convinced that she is the paladin.

If that sounds like something that would interest you or your kids, let me know. Because it will make me more likely to put it out there.

That sounds awesome to me, Matt! I know my 12-year old would enjoy it a lot.  

Where can people find you and your books?

You can find me at my blog, http://mikalatos.com, on my website, http://mattmikalatos.com, on twitter, http://twitter.com/mattmikalatos .

And you can find my books… wherever books are sold! Both Imaginary Jesus and Night of the Living Dead Christian are available online and in excellent bookstores everywhere.

Thanks for a great interview, Matt. If you like humor and spiritual depth (I don’t know how he does it!) you won’t want to miss this one! Here’s some quick links to Matt’s new book:

Amazon

CBD 

To enter to win the free copy of Matt’s book, just comment here your thoughts about his interview and new book. Don’t forget to add your email or a way to contact you in case you win!  God bless and as always, my dears, thanks for reading!