AWC professor publishes first of two novels

A local English professor has an imagination that just won't stop.

Darren Dillman, who teaches at Arizona Western College, recently published his first of two novels and says his active imagination is what inspired him to leave a pharmaceutical career track and devote his life to writing.

"I always had these ideas for stories. I would be going to bed at night and I would just see this image or vision of things, and I would say 'Ooh, that would be cool if that happened.'"

Dillman's first novel, "The Preacher," was released March 1 and the author said that a sequel is already in the works.

"The Preacher," although classified as a Christian novel, is intended to reach a general audience, Dillman said. The book details a Baptist church in a small town near Dallas that becomes infiltrated by a smooth-talking, well-informed but evil preacher.

Only two main characters, an elderly deacon and a simple housewife, see the preacher's true nature. Dillman explains that the book is essentially about the battle between good and evil.

"I wanted to show that evil can take any form, just as good can take unlikely forms."

The novel features elements of Christian theology, Southern folklore and the supernatural. In addition to being Christian, the book is also classified as a horror/suspense novel.

Dillman listed Steven King and Robert McCammon as some of his literary influences. He also mentioned Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter."

"(Hawthorne) beat people to the punch when it came to scrutinizing the Protestant religion and the preachers."

Dillman said his book took about a nine-year process to reach its first publication. He began writing before he started graduate school at McNeese State University in Louisiana and finished his first draft about three years ago.

He spent two years editing the piece while living and working in Taiwan. After moving back to the U.S., he found himself an agent.

"The Preacher" was accepted for publication in 2007 by the David C. Cook publishing company in Colorado Springs, Colo.

While the novel takes place near Dallas, Dillman actually grew up in New Mexico. He said that growing up in a Baptist church helped him write a more accurate description of details in the novel, but he never actually intended the book to be labeled Christian fiction.

"I tried to find a balance between the Christian and the secular. I didn't want to overdo it, I didn't want to scare some secular readers away."

Dillman's parents started their own Baptist church in New Mexico when he was young, and his connection to both the church and desert life have influenced him in his writing.

"I really like the desert. I don't think there's a better smell than to smell it raining in the desert. Details like that never leave you, they keep calling you back."

Dillman now teaches English at AWC's learning center in San Luis and has been living in Yuma for the past two years.

"The Preacher" is available at various places online, as well as locally at Barnes and Noble Booksellers and The Ark. Hastings has the book available by special order.