About Stephen Lawhead
Stephen R. Lawhead was born in Kearney, Nebraska on 2 July, 1950. He attended local schools and then Kearney State College, where he majored in Fine Art. He paid for his education by playing lead guitar in a popular local rock band, Mother Rush. While at Kearney State he published numerous poems in college anthologies, and wrote a humor column for the college newspaper.
He married Alice Slaikeu in 1972 and,
together, they moved to the Chicago area so
he could attend Northern Baptist Theological
Seminary. He left before graduating when
offered a position on the staff of Campus Life
Magazine, where he worked for five years.
Writing a record review column at Campus
Life fed his musical interest; he took on the
management of Christian rock band DeGarmo
& Key, then left Campus Life to start his own
record company in Memphis, Tennessee.
Ariel Records lasted only a year; going out of business on a Friday afternoon in April. On the following Monday morning Lawhead began writing a novel: In the Hall of the Dragon King. The object of the exercise was to see if he could sustain a full-length work of fiction, and support his family – which now included baby Ross, and soon-to-arrive Drake – on a writer's income.
He did finish the book and, with the support and advocacy of editor Jan Dennis, it was published in 1982 by Crossway Books. Eight novels followed, all published by Crossway: the remaining DRAGON KING books, three science fiction novels, and the first three books of THE PENDRAGON CYCLE.
Meanwhile, the Lawheads moved from Memphis to Lincoln, Nebraska, and then to Oxford, England, in 1986 for more than a year while researching and writing Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur. They returned to Lincoln in 1987, but by 1990 were back in Oxford where they now reside.