Frank E. Peretti

Frank Peretti (b. 1951) is an American author who focuses primarily on Christian topics, especially those surrounding spiritual warfare.

Peretti, an English and Film major at UCLA in the 1970s, initially became involved in Christian music as a way of combining his interests in art and faith. After a number of years, however, he switched gears, and began work on his first book, This Present Darkness.

In 1988, This Present Darkness was released to remarkable success (for the Christian book market) -- its story of a demonic threat to a small town, and the Christians and angels who fend off that threat, captured the imaginations of many readers across the United States. The sequel, Piercing the Darkness (1989), was also well-received. Together, the two books have sold more than 3.5 million copies to date. Another book, Prophet (1992), combined Peretti's now-signature focus on the spirit realm with the issue of abortion.

Peretti reportedly felt badly about his early books' success -- he insisted that he had not yet developed his craft as a writer sufficiently, and began working with secular publishers and editors in an attempt to improve his writing. The result, The Oath (1995) has sold 860,000 copies worldwide, and was the recipient of the 1996 ECPA Gold Medallion Award for Best Fiction. The Oath left behind the world of angels and demons developed in previous books, but didn't abandon the fantastic: in it, Peretti tells the story of a fictional logging town in Washington and how a bargain its founders once made with a dark force has backfired.

After releasing The Visitation (1999), a story of a town in eastern Washington visited by a man who claims to be Jesus reincarnate, Peretti made a departure from writing his popular novels. In 2000, Peretti released The Wounded Spirit, an autobiographical story of Peretti's childhood struggles with physical disfigurement and an examination of how society abuses and scars children emotionally.

Peretti has also written two series of books for younger readers -- the Cooper Kids Adventure Series (8 books) for pre-teenagers, and the Veritas Project for teens, which has released two books to date (2004).

Recently Peretti's first book in the Veritas Project Series, The Hangman's Curse has been released by Twentieth Century Fox as a film (DVD: 2004). In this film Peretti has a small role as an eccentric professor. It was a limited release in theaters and appears to have been successful enough to encourage the film producers to continue developing Peretti's books into films. Next on the list to be produced is The Visitation.

Peretti lives with his wife on Puget Sound in western Washington.