Why Fantasy?

C.S. Lewis once wrote that fantasy has the power to “steal past our watchful dragons”—to bypass the defenses we build around our hearts and speak directly to the truths we already know but have forgotten how to hear.

That’s why I write fantasy. Not because dragons and magic are escapist, but because they give us permission to ask the real questions without feeling like we’re being lectured.

Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories” shaped my understanding of what fantasy can do. He described it as a world-building act that creates “secondary belief”—the moment a reader stops seeing words on a page and starts living in the world you’ve made. That’s the goal. Not to escape reality, but to see it more clearly through a different lens.

Andrew Peterson once said something that reframed writing for me entirely. He talks about the intersection of art, faith, and community—how creating stories isn’t just about pursuing a dream, but about loving your neighbor. Fantasy, at its best, gives people a way to wrestle with hope, loss, redemption, and sacrifice—the things that matter most—in a space that feels safe enough to feel them.

The Darkland Saga lives in that space between hope and despair. The darkness is real. The stakes are high. But the light is always worth fighting for—because the stories that stay with us aren’t the ones where everything goes right. They’re the ones where people make impossible choices, fail, get back up, and choose again.

Whether building new worlds or exploring old truths, the stories of the Darkland Saga remind us that light overcomes darkness—and hope always has the final word.