June (Web-only) 2004

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Last week, G.P. Taylor's Shadowmancer is #1 title on the New York Timeslist of bestselling children's books. This week, it is #5.

Before you were the author of this wildly popular book, you were a vicar in the Church of England. But that wasn't where you started out. Everybody is picking up on the fact that you had a varied career, including early your teens a stint in the music industry. What was that all about?

That was all about being a rebellious teenager and running away from home and going to London, where the streets are definitely not paved with gold. I couldn't sing. I couldn't play an instrument, so I had to work for a record company. I did a couple of gigs with a band called The Stranglers, and the Sex Pistols, and Elvis Costello, and Adam and the Ants. And you name it, I was involved with them, lugging their gear up and down the stairs of various nightclubs in the land.

But not long after that you changed your occupation and you actually did social work.

God stepped into my life. He turned up big style. I was involved in the occult as a teenager, and into all sorts of weird and wonderful things. One night I woke up, looked in the mirror, and said, "Oh God, there's got to be more to life than this." And that was the first time I ever felt God speak to me. And he said there was.

How did you get involved in the occult?

I simply wanted to know what happened when you died. There's millions of kids out there who are very hungry to know the big questions of life. The church was portraying a God who had gone off and wasn't involved anymore. There was no power, no majesty, no authority, no miracles anymore. And I thought, well, I don't really want to get involved in that. They were all arguing amongst themselves all the time, ...