Chris’ Books:
* For more information on his books, click the pics above
About the Author:
Chris Elston has worked as a writer in various mediums, including the film and television industry, since the 1990’s. He primarily grew up in the northern suburbs of Seattle, Washington, went to college about twenty-five miles southwest of Portland, Oregon and then lived in the Los Angeles area for fifteen years. He now resides in Prescott Valley, Arizona with his wife and business partner, Andrea. Together, they own and operate Shine-A-Light Corp, which includes a publishing house, and a non-profit organization called Shine the Light Ministries.
First Name Acrostic:
Christ follower
Husband
Rambunctious on occasion
Imaginative
Saved by the 5 solas
Travel Bucket List Items:
In the U.S.A. — I’d like to take a road trip through the northern states because I haven’t been east of Montana and north of Illinois/Indiana as an adult. We could turn around and head back once we stopped for a “Frrrozen Hot Chocolate” at the iconic Serendipity3 between Second and Third avenues in New York City.
Outside the U.S.A. — Israel.
An adventure — I’m typically just happy to survive the day.
An Accomplishment He’s Proud Of:
Finding the most amazing woman on the planet and somehow convincing her to marry me.
Five Favorites:
Movie – The Shawshank Redemption
Music – Christian, Classic Rock, Country
Food – Pizza, steak
Book – After God’s Word, that’s like a 50-way tie and I’m not going to list them all
Vacation spot – Hawaii, Lake Chelan (Eastern Washington State)
“Family Photos”
Website: cselston.com
Coming soon: The Four Corners of Winter
While the list is in no particular order, I thought I’d start with C.S. Lewis and his fantastic Chronicles of Narnia series because of both comparisons to my series, “The Four Corners,” and the fact that we share the same first two initials (although, I’m Christopher Scott – not Clive Staples.) The Narnia books were staples (pun absolutely intended) in my house when I grew up. “The Screwtape Letters” also blew me away in high school and books like “Mere Christianity” and “A Grief Observed” are works I recommend to everyone. C.S. Lewis has had as big of an impact on me as a writer and a person as anyone else on the planet. Absolute genius.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Richard Matheson is another excellent writer who has had a lot of his books turned into movies (“Stir Of Echoes”, “I Am Legend”, etc.) including the well thought of “What Dreams May Come” which was both enjoyable and disturbing for me due to it’s distorted view of heaven. But, I first discovered Matheson when I saw the movie “Somewhere In Time” and loved it. starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour and Christopher Plummer. It was captivating to me. So, I read the book (originally called “Bid Time Return” but changed for marketing reasons to match the film title) and liked it even better.
The Stephen King & Frank Darabont collaboration
This book (as well asthe 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck) made me want to write about real people and real problems. It also cemented, in both my writing and me as a person, themes of justice, redemption and truth. This is not only the greatest novel of the 20th century, it’s one of the greatest, if not the greatest, novels of all time. I have to admit though, I wish they had left “Go Set A Watchman” in the drawer where it was kept for 55 years.
2020 is officially history and it’s hard to imagine that makes too many people sad. It was a tough one, in many ways, but there were also some great things that happened. For example, while we formed this company in the second half of 2019, it really started ramping up in early 2020. The first author we brought into the fold signed with us in April and we are thrilled to now have 14 members of the Shine-A-Light family with several others currently under consideration. We also published 14 manuscripts (not including the 4-6 freebies per month we have been putting on our site since September) this year and are excited about the 24 that are in the editing/formatting phases right now. Within our family, we are aware of 48 additional projects that are currently in the writing and/or development phases, too.
All of that makes the prospect of 2021 very exciting to us and we are intent on it being the year we build the support element of the family atmosphere. To aid in this process, we have reserved a private Facebook group and a new YouTube channel. We are hoping that the “members only” Facebook group can be a place where we are all able to communicate with one another and share ideas about how to promote our work. The YouTube channel will be a place to help us gain exposure. We would like to produce material that both private schools can use in chapels and educators in the classroom.
Speaking (or, writing) of exposure, we wanted to attend private school and homeschool conventions in 2020 but they all got cancelled due to COVID-19. We are currently signed up for an event here in Arizona scheduled for July, one in Tennessee scheduled for March and a third in April that will hopefully happen in Texas. There are others we also plan to attend in Florida, Colorado and New York. These conferences would be great exposure for Shine-A-Light as a company as well as for the whole family and their individual works. Please join us in praying that these opportunities are not taken away from us again this year. Especially now that we have built up a bigger inventory of great material and have so much more to offer.
