The annual Realm Makers gathering—held in 2024 at a Sheraton in St. Louis—has all the typical markings of a cosplay-encouraged conference: a preponderance of elf ears and dragon earrings; bustling vendor tables featuring all things fairies, robots, unicorns, and armor.
What’s perhaps unusual, however, is all the smiles. A palpable joy radiates from the authors, publishers, and fans of faith-based speculative fiction who come to this growing convention, now entering its 12th year. These are people who feel they have finally found a home.
In a welcome letter, Realm Makers CEO Becky Minor told 2024 conference goers: “I pray the time you spend at Realm Makers allows you the space to revel in all the quirky appreciations you have of the magical, impossible, or even the creepy corners of your imagination.”
Those “quirky appreciations” have always been part of Christian speculative (“spec”) fiction, the broad literature category encompassing faith-based science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels. But the genre’s quirks have also isolated it in the marketplace: Christian spec fiction is not shelved with general-market fantasy and sci-fi, nor is it grouped with mainstream Christian fiction like Amish love stories, historical romances, and more contemporary titles.
That lack of a home has long been viewed as a problem for Christian spec fiction. Now, however, the category is coming into its own like an ancient spore drifting in from space. Or a sentient robot intent on becoming human. Or a dragon freed from its treasure cave. Or an elf, a dwarf, or a wizard on a quest.
It’s happening in large part because writers and readers of the genre are building a home for themselves.
“We were percolating on events for Christian creators of speculative fiction who didn’t have a space they could call their own,” said Scott Minor, who with his wife, Becky, owns Realm Makers.
They held the first Realm Makers conference in 2013, with 85 in attendance including presenters and staff. The demand for the community was obvious: By 2024, the conference had grown to 475 attendees. Realm Makers also offers a dedicated social media network, webinars, an online bookstore, and the annual Realm Awards for novels.
Natalea Waller and Emily McKeehan, schoolteachers in Knoxville, Tennessee, who are cowriting a fantasy series, attended the conference for the first time in 2024. They heard about it only two weeks in advance. “We didn’t know there was a community for Christian fantasy writers. They are our people. It’s what we do and love,” the pair said, nearly in unison.
Lelia Foreman, a 72-year-old sci-fi author, echoed that sentiment. She loves “Realmies,” as they are called, because they are “not aghast at what you’re doing.”
The Minors attribute the community’s growth in part to the fact that “spec fiction is the genre of young people in the Christian world.” Half of conference attendees are under the age of 35, they said. And about 30 percent of people in the Realm Makers community are male—challenging the stereotype that readers and writers of Christian fiction are almost entirely female. “A greater proportion of male authors makes for a greater proportion of male readers,” Scott Minor said.
Christian spec fiction headliners include Nadine Brandes, who offers a magical retelling of the 16th-century British Gunpowder Plot in Fawkes; Clint Hall, whose Steal Fire from the Gods includes android overlords, cyborg clans, and one man bent on saving the world; S. D. Grimm, whose orphaned Phoenix must unlock her powers to save her race in Phoenix Fire; and James R. Hannibal, whose Lightraider Academy series is full of battles, dragons, and young heroes.
Finding readers is the biggest hurdle most authors face, but in Christian spec fiction it is an especially uphill climb. “There is a very distinct difference in Christian reader habits for those who love science fiction and fantasy. Readers are buying online, mostly through Amazon and most as e-books,” Minor said. There isn’t a single destination for readers seeking distinctly Christian spec fiction (although the Realm Makers website has a bookstore). “Readers also go to where they’ll find the authors—at secular fan conferences, or cons.”
Those buying habits can make it even harder to get Christian spec fiction on mainstream bookstore shelves. Few Christian publishers take the chance in publishing the genre these days, so few books are available through traditional distribution channels.
“Fantasy seems to be going by the wayside since the aughts,” said a senior acquisitions editor at Bethany House, a division of Baker Publishing Group. “We used to publish it, but not anymore. It’s becoming extremely niche.”
Yet Steve Laube, former owner and current publisher for Enclave Publishing, has a different view: “Don’t tell me fantasy doesn’t sell, because that’s not true. Why isn’t a major publisher jumping in? I have no good answer.”
Enclave, an imprint of Oasis Family Media, calls itself “a leading publisher of Christian speculative fiction,” which includes science fiction, fantasy, time travel, steampunk, alternative history, spiritual warfare, superhero, and techno-thriller. Enclave released 16 books in 2023 and 20 in 2024, with 19 on the docket for this year. Enclave also launched its own online store to sell books directly to readers.
Laube, a lifelong lover of spec fiction, came into the industry in the 1980s as a bookseller when “there wasn’t much in the category: Stephen Lawhead and Frank Peretti, if you want to call his work speculative.” Laube joined Bethany House in 1992. He introduced spec fiction into the line with authors such as Karen Hancock, Randy Ingermanson, and Kathy Tyers. When he left Bethany in 2003 to become a literary agent—he owns The Steve Laube Agency—spec fiction fell off Bethany’s list.
“A house needs to have an editorial staff that understands the genre, and sales and marketing departments don’t know how to sell it,” Laube said. “Back then, Christian publishers were selling to Lifeway and Family Christian stores, but those readers were suspicious of spec fiction.”
Enter Marcher Lord Press around 2008, started by Jeff Gerke. It began publishing spec fiction across the spectrum. Laube purchased Marcher Lord in 2014, rebranding it as Enclave.
“Since then,” Laube said, “the bookstore industry has collapsed. But that also means the gatekeepers are gone. We are now dealing directly with fans. It’s a different way of presenting books to the marketplace.”
That’s a lesson the Minors have learned. They attend several homeschool conventions each year, for example, finding parents and students who are eager for spec fiction. They also point to the growth of small publishers and self-publishing options as entry points into the speculative genres for new authors. “That has increased the number of people who feel they can get into the marketplace,” Becky Minor said.
In fact, the Realm Makers 2024 Book of the Year was Song of the Selkies, which author Sarah Pennington published independently through Amazon. It also won in Realm Makers’ fantasy category. Pennington calls the book “an epic fantasy retelling of The Little Mermaid set in the Celtic Isles.” She’s attended the Realm Makers conference for three years but has been in contact with the “Realmie” culture and groups for almost a decade.
“It’s the community through which I have found my writer friends and made connections,” said Pennington, who has self-published seven books. “I’ve gotten advice through those connections, found mentors, and discovered publishing options. I wouldn’t have gotten into self-publishing otherwise.”
Other groups are honoring Christian spec fiction as well. The Christy Awards, the premier Christian fiction award program, has included versions of the spec fiction genre since 2000. “Speculative category entries have risen 38 percent overall from 2018 to 2023,” said Cindy Carter, awards manager for the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, which runs the Christies. In 2023, the group saw 53 percent growth in the number of spec books being submitted for awards.
Sharon Hinck, who publishes with Enclave, won three consecutive Christies for her spec fiction, beginning in 2020. She was inducted into the Christy Award Hall of Fame in November 2024. Hinck welcomes the revival of the genre, which owes its existence to early pioneers and legends C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Why has Christian speculative fiction seemed to struggle when it stands on the shoulders of such giants?
“People thought it was full of magic and witches. Christians can get so tribal, where everything is dangerous and about fear,” Hinck said. “But my philosophy is that God is so multifaceted and creative that he needs every art form, every genre, to reflect every aspect of God.”
So what makes a work of speculative fiction Christian? It isn’t simply creating sanctified versions of old tropes, Scott Minor said. It’s “a returning to the forefront of those ideas but using the creativity God gave us to create a coherent world view with a focus on story, written for a Christian audience. This is fiction we believe Christians will want to read.”
The genre offers clear alternatives to the sexualized, male-dominated, and female-objectifying content of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. And speculative fiction isn’t the inherently evil storytelling that the evangelical “satanic panic” deemed it during that era, as evangelicals were also condemning role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons.
Christian fantasy authors often use different names to represent God while spinning stories of God-followers living out their callings. In Pennington’s Song of the Selkies, for example, Déanadair guides Ceana, the seventh princess of the kingdom of Atìrse, as she tries to restore the relationship between her country and the selkie kingdom. Déanadair also guides the selkies, or seal people, and their king, Fionntan. In Hinck’s Dream of Kings,the Provider guides Jolan the Dream Teller.
“My books are pretty overtly Christian, unapologetically so,” Hinck said. “They are going to raise questions of faith. We’re all humans with spiritual questions and hungers, so exploring faith adds another element to the external conflicts. We are not ‘less than’ or limiting ourselves by being Christian authors. We’re expanding what we’re exploring in our stories.”
Scott Minor believes spec fiction “is having a really nice, long moment.” He says the corresponding renaissance of Dungeons & Dragons and similar games and the popularity of superhero movies are part of “legitimizing the genre.”
It helps, too, that Realm Makers is just one part of an expanding ecosystem of Christian nerd culture. That includes groups like Imladris, a home for Christians working in or adjacent to the gaming industry; Geeks Under Grace and Lorehaven, media outlets covering gaming and speculative genres from a faith-based perspective; the Christian Comic Arts Society; and Love Thy Nerd and the Nerd Culture Ministry Summit, an outreach to gamers, role players, “Whovians” (fans of Doctor Who), and the like.
If anything, the growth of the faith-based speculative fiction market has created a new discoverability problem, said Hinck and others: There is so much spec fiction published online that it’s hard to sort through.
Even so, leaders in the genre believe there is room for more growth. “There is still a lot of fear from the Christian reading community,” Hinck said. “I’m pretty old-fashioned [in my storytelling], but it still took a lot for readers to realize my books are orthodox, my books are safe.”
The Minors think readers, especially younger readers, are increasingly ready to get past that fear as they hunger for stories to reassure them that evil can be defeated, dawn will come again, and there is meaning and purpose even in our high-tech and isolating world.
“There is so much more we can explore, so many stories people will resonate with,” Becky Minor said. “Spec fiction writers can tell a story that isn’t set in my world and whose rules don’t apply, yet lets me look at this idea with fresh eyes.”
To Laube, the future looks good for spec fiction. He pointed to WaterBrook’s release of Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather novels, Thomas Nelson’s young-adult line featuring spec fiction, and HarperCollins’s Blink imprint.
“We have a second generation post-Star Wars that has grown up on these types of stories. They love them and want to write them,” Laube said. “The creativity out there is breathtaking—there is so much good to choose from. Let’s double down. Let’s do more.”
Ann Byle is a writer living in West Michigan. She is the author of Chicken Scratch: Lessons on Living Creatively from a Flock of Hens.
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