Writing update

What are you working on? Are you still writing? Any new books in the works?

The answer, as it always has been since the early 1990s is the same. I'm always writing. Not always physically hitting the keyboard, but always thinking, always plotting.

It's been a few years since I signed a new fiction contract, a two book deal with Howard (division of Simon and Schuster) for the books, Salty Like Blood and my upcoming book, The Six-Liter Club. I'm getting anxious to see my upcoming release, coming April 6. In it, I turned to a familiar setting, Medical College of Virginia set during the years of my own medical school years there. For that reason, the book feels personal.

But it's also scary: For the first time, I wrote in first-person through the eyes of an African-American. And not just A-A, an A-A female. I think I pulled it off, even passed it by the critical eye of an A-A female author, but only time will tell if the book will live up to the hype. Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say:

Surgeon and author Kraus offers his longtime fiction readers a
highly charged tale of overcoming prejudice both racial and sexual.
Set in 1984 at the Medical College of Virginia, its first black
female trauma surgeon, Dr. Camille Weller, gets a fast initiation
into the Six-Liter Club. Few physicians ever enter this „elite‰
group; entrance is gained by bringing a patient back who's lost six
liters of blood. Weller manages to achieve this honor on her first
day and then, in quick succession, also manages to break „house
rules,‰ which divide the male and female staff. Weller has a lot to
contend with apart from her duties as a surgeon. The young doctor
must balance a romantic relationship with a resident; deftly
overcome the barriers she encounters because of her skin color; and
move beyond nightmarish memories of her childhood in the Congo.
Kraus's story clips along at a fast pace, and his readers will
appreciate how candidly the surgeon writer portrays the real world
of operating rooms and their attending staffs.

I'm particularly pleased, as PW has a reputation for slamming inspirational "Christian" fiction after the compliments. Thank God for a little grace.

So what have I been doing in the months since writing and revising my upcoming novel? Writing something new. Not sure of the title yet, but it is set in Africa, and delves into corrupt politics, witchcraft, marriage betrayal, missionaries losing loved ones while serving on the field and coming to grips with God's grace. I just finished the rough draft this week and am anxious for my literary agent to show it around. It brings together two settings I know well: Richmond, Virginia where I attended medical school, and Kijabe, Kenya in a mission hospital where I worked for four years. It was a blast to write. Now comes the hard part: the WAIT for word from my agent.

On the non-fiction front, Domesticated Jesus is coming out in June with P&R publishers. I'm very excited about this book as it takes an honest look at how we routinely underestimate God in our thinking. (For example, every worry is an example of making Jesus small or domesticated in our minds as we are acting as if he is too small to take care of our problem.) I've seen a prototype of the cover. It is a shocking image of a dog collar with a tag containing the title. It is taken from the concept that we've made Jesus into someone who serves us (like a pet) not vice-versa.

In the upcoming weeks, I'm going to launch into another project, likely something I've been noodling on for months....more clues to follow.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, A Zebra Tale is coming out later this year with Word Alive Publishers in Nairobi, Kenya. It is a fun tale of the great flood told through the eyes of a zebra (ever wonder how God got all those animals to go against their instinct and follow a man? And what if God invited the very lion that killed your zebra brother? And what if no one in the herd, including your family, believed you when you warned them of upcoming catastrophe. The book will be distributed in Africa, but available here in US through internet sales via the Word Alive site.

Thanks for asking.

And thanks for reading.

Harry