Announcing the First 11 Authors Whose Books We're Publishing
These gifted writers constitute the first wave joining the God of the Desert creative community.
While we announced the formation and launch of God of the Desert Books on July 4 of 2022, it has taken us since then to plan out and make the necessary structural steps before being ready to announce the authors who have chosen to join us. We needed to negotiate and sign a deal with our distributor, develop a brand-new business plan based on that plan, create a new author contract reflecting both which our group of authors supported, and then get everyone signed up under it.
It’s been many often onerous, difficult tasks to accomplish before we can start “the fun stuff” of beginning production and promotions. Given David’s very negative experiences with previous independent publishers which were run in an irresponsibly slapdash, unprofessional manner, we wanted to make sure to get all our ducks in a row before making any public announcements.
For those of you new to following our developing book company — especially those who may have joined us recently, perhaps in response to David’s angry arguments against antisemites — we suppose an explanation is in order. While some of our titles will have overt Zionist themes, most will not. Below we’ll name the first authors we intend to publish in nonfiction, genre adventures, mysteries, and literature. Our goal here is simple: to bring together creative people of diverse backgrounds and faiths who embrace Zionist values. We want to unite Jews, Christians, Muslims, and those of other religions from all around the world to collaborate together in peace and loving inter-faith fellowship.
Something else to note: while we’re naming all of our authors now, there are only five books whose titles we are ready to announce now. We have working titles for everything else, but until we complete the editorial process, we’re not going to know with absolute certainty what most of these books will end up being called. So no announcements about them yet. When we get each of them sent to our distributor and have approximate release dates, then we’ll announce those.
For this initial launch, we have five categories of titles, each which will have its own imprint, Substack publication, and unique marketing plans. We’ll be announcing each imprint’s name and inviting you to subscribe to the corresponding Substack this month. Each author will also have their own solo Substack we hope you will enjoy.
Zionist Nonfiction
The first title we will publish is
’s memoir Israel Odyssey, describing his decision to make Aliyah and what he found in the Jewish state when he got there. He has updated it to include an afterword describing the aftermath of 10/7.David has worked with Hornik for about 10 years now, and deeply enjoyed editing his articles in a time that seems so long ago now. He’s a skilled writer who works across mediums, both fiction and nonfiction. We’re also preparing to publish literary works by him including a powerful poetry collection.
David is working on two nonfiction titles with strong Zionist themes which we will publish through our nonfiction imprint. These include an A-Z guide to political ideologies and a compilation of his essays and journalism that we’re planning to call Psychedelic Zionism Rising.
Genre Fiction - Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thrillers
We’re excited that we’ll be publishing fun novels that run across types. The first one will be
’s Perdicion: The Other Blue Planet, first in a trilogy of science fiction novels set in a solar system much like our own. Alec’s series is what one might characterize as “1980s space opera.” It brings to mind a “Star Wars” and “Battlestar Galactica” tradition of conflicts between spaceships and clashes between very different cultures. This style of more “classic” science fiction is what we’re most interested in publishing: science fiction evoking what writers were doing from the 1910s (yes, how about some John Carter of Mars-style books?) through the 1980s. After that, much of the genre just starts getting a bit too postmodern for us.Perhaps now is a good place to emphasize: here and in our other imprints, we’re largely fairly “traditional” in what we want to do. We're looking for three-act structure, hero’s journey, and stories drawing on the conventions which sustained each style of book for decades, if not centuries. We’re really not all that interested in overly “experimental” work. There’s self-publishing available for that.
, like Hornik, possesses a broad range as a writer, and we’re excited to explore with him which styles of books he’s going to want to do in the future. First, though, we’re going to get out the entirety of his Cricket Hastings thriller series. The 5-book collection focuses on one family and the young woman leading them as they navigate through the chaos of an America recovering from an EMP attack, which has knocked out most of the country’s modern technology. We previously published the first three titles in this series at GOTD’s predecessor publisher. However, in re-releasing these and the two final, unpublished books, we’re planning a massive change in marketing direction including the covers and internal illustrations we’ll be creating.Finally, in launching this imprint we are also including a nonfiction title.
has drafted a delightful book about how to apply political science principles for writers doing world-building on their fantasy and science fiction titles. It’s just a tremendously fascinating book which could be very useful to aspiring fiction writers.Given this book’s clear genre themes, we thought it best to include it here, and in turn, to open up this imprint for nonfiction titles, too, with themes that relate to the novels we’re publishing. If you have a book analyzing science fiction, fantasy, movies, or pop culture more broadly, then we’ll be interested in considering it.
Literary Works
The most elegantly written title we’ll be publishing is Howard Foster’s Miranda’s War, which was previously published through GOTD’s predecessor but, shamefully, did not receive the promotions and cover which it warranted. Howard’s novel is a wicked satire of elite New Englanders, featuring one hell of a disruptor in the character of Miranda Dalton. The book is tremendously funny, and Howard has written it with such skill. I’m excited to try again at getting it out to the right readers who will appreciate it and then encourage Howard on his future writings.
has composed an extraordinary work of historical fiction, the first in a planned series. Set in the 1860s, following the conclusion of the Civil War, and inspired by the true story of her ancestors, Barb’s novel honors the journey of Lizzie and Mary Jane, two Quaker sisters from Indiana who traveled down to the Reconstruction South to teach the recently-freed former enslaved people. is another writer in the group who David has known, edited, and counted as a friend for over a decade. Initially we had planned for him to be our poetry editor — and that was his role when we attempted to relaunch GOTD’s predecessor. And while he still may play the role of finding and editing poetry when he so chooses, I’ve decided to instead encourage him to primarily focus on his own poetry, and for us to make him the first and primary poet we will publish. So we’ve got a new chapbook by him that will be the first poetry book we publish.
Mysteries
’s The Secret of Fatima is a delightful mystery set in the Vatican and the broader world of the Catholic Church. This book was also originally published by our predecessor. Based around prophetic revelations allegedly given to children in 1917 and then hidden by the church for decades, the book creates wonderful characters and a twisting, exciting plot. We hope Peter will write more books like this, but even if he wants to shift toward other styles, we’ll be eager to work with him.What Peter has created here is also very much the type of mystery or genre book we’re interested in - those that draw from the religious worlds. We hope in the future we can acquire more titles like this one.
Bill Walsh also has a fun, mysterious novel. This one is based around a hidden government agency tasked with handling supernatural threats.
Finally,
is working on a short story collection inspired by the work of Shirley Jackson. She’s crafted a number of spooky tales with wild twist endings. While novels and nonfiction are the primary types of books we’re looking for, we will consider short story collections too.
Women’s Memoirs
is also leading an imprint designed to tell women’s stories for women readers. Many of you are likely already familiar with this imprint’s name and Substack, which we launched last year: 
Sally is also working on a memoir, centered around 13 terrible dates, each symbolizing a different part of her life and the lessons learned from that time and those experiences. Here are early drafts of some of the stories she’ll tell.
If you have any questions about our upcoming imprints, authors, or books, then please leave them in the comments, reply to this email, or hit us up on Substack Notes.
Also, one last note: while we are not actively soliciting new titles or new members of our creative community, if you are a subscriber to our Substack and have a book you’d like to see published, then you are more than welcome to get in touch with us. Just reply to one of our emails and provide us with a brief query describing your book and your aspirations as an author. If it sounds like a potential fit for us, then we’ll ask you to submit the manuscript and we will review it.
And likewise, if you have a shorter work which you would like to submit for potential publication on our Substack, then you’re welcome to get in touch, too. As you’ve seen in the range of books we’re publishing, we’re open to a broad variety of writing and art.