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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, and it's not the place for me to be.

What finally made you turn to Christianity?

I came back home to the north of England when I felt this word inside me say, Go home, and I'll find you a job and I'll find you a wife. And it was such a powerful feeling that I thought, I've got to obey this, whatever it is. I now know it was God speaking to me. I went straight back home to my parents' house and got involved in being a volunteer in a day center for retired people.

The strange thing was, all these people on staff used to huddle up together and pray. They had something about their life which I wanted. There was something about them that was completely different. Through their witness, they answered the questions I was asking. They had a God who was powerful, who wanted to come into our lives, who wanted to transform me, and who loved me. That was it. I just couldn't get over this fact that I was loved. Very gently they'd invite me to church. And like a lamb I just followed on.

And finally you became a vicar.

That was the last thing I wanted to be. I didn't want to wear a dress, and I didn't think I wanted my faith put in a box. The more the years went on, the more it became obvious that that's what God's plan was for my life. I even ran away to the police force thinking, I've never read one thing in the Bible about a policeman being called. This is a safe place to be. Anywhere, knowing God, is not a safe place to be because he's going to get you wherever you are.

Your first church, St. Mary's of Whitby, has a connection to the occult.

Bram Stoker wrote a book called Dracula when he was on holiday in Whitby in the late Victorian period. He sets this story in Whitby, and pictured Dracula being buried in the churchyard on the top of the cliff at Whitby. Sure enough, my first church was St. Mary's in Whitby, with Dracula's grave there in the middle of the churchyard.

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June (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48