🌆 Ten Years to the Gate: The Birth of The City of E

“Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”

—1 Thessalonians 5:24

Ten years ago, a city was born in the margins of my journal.

Not a real city—yet one that became more real to me than most places I’ve actually been.

A city suspended between shadow and light, where whispers stir the faithful and the trees remember something the people have forgotten.

A city stitched together from scripture, sorrow, sanctification, and the quiet voice of the Spirit.

I didn’t know what it would become then.

I just knew I couldn’t shake it.

🌿 The City That Wouldn’t Let Me Go

I started sketching characters, imagining districts, drawing maps.

I dreamed of steeples and smokestacks, underground rebellions, songs that awaken the soul, and false trees that promise truth but poison the roots.

The stories kept growing—interconnected, biblical, bruised, beautiful.

And so, The City of E was born.

Not as a book, but as a world—an allegorical universe that would one day stretch across eight or more full-length works, devotionals, journals, and maybe even film or graphic novels.

That was ten years ago.

This year, Book One—The Heart of the Tree—finally entered the world.

And it did so on a day that bears deep, unexpected meaning: the birthday of the grandfather I’m named after. A man I never really knew, but whose legacy lives in my name and my calling.

🛠 This Was Never Just a Hobby

Let’s be honest—there were plenty of reasons to quit.

The timeline got messy.

The theological stakes were high.

The characters started challenging me more than I expected.

I wrestled with pride, fear, perfectionism, grief, and the ever-looming lie that it would never be enough to matter.

But God wouldn’t let me stop.

He gave the vision, and He sustained it—even when I wanted to walk away.

This world didn’t come from ambition. It came from obedience

📚 The Heart of the Tree Is Only the Beginning

This first book opens the gates.

But The Light of the Tree, Zara and the Iron Leviathan, and at least six more major works are waiting behind the curtain.

Some are mid-edit. Others are already outlined, threaded with scripture and fire.

Each explores a new thread of the same story: how the light breaks through the cracks, how redemption takes root even in exile, how the Spirit still speaks—even when the world stops listening.

If you think this first story was wild… just wait.

🙌 All Glory to God

I didn’t build this world. I stewarded it.

God gave me the architecture, the echo, the allegory. I just tried to hold the pen without getting in the way.

He gave me Amanda to ground me. My kids to inspire me. My grief to soften me.

And the gospel to redeem every broken piece.

👣 Why This Moment Matters

Publishing The Heart of the Tree on my grandfather’s birthday wasn’t planned—but it couldn’t have been more perfect.

I never knew him—he died before I was two.

But I carry his name.

And now, this world carries it too

#CityOfE #Chronicles #BookLaunch #ChristianFantasy #Legacy #TenYears