About the author

I have been a Reader for over thirty years; I live in St Buryan with my wife, Brigit, and our two teenage children, Aidan and Bryony.

I am part of the ministry team of the Penlee Cluster, generally to be found at St Peter`s on Sundays.

For many years, I have been interested in writing stories, and, at Penwith College, I participated in a two-year course in creative writing.  After this, about ten years ago, I set about writing a Christian novel – not having any idea what the end result would be.  And yet, the words came (initially, over one-hundred thousand of them) and I was amazed by the process – clearly this was God`s work, not mine.

Upon completion of “the Cardman”, I asked several people if they would read the manuscript, asking also for any comments.  I am indebted to these people for their kindness in doing this for me. 

Subsequently, I submitted the manuscript to a major Christian publisher, without success.  After this the manuscript lay dormant for several years.

Then, only a few months ago, I was struck by the fact that these words were not given to me to put in a box on a shelf, but needed to be shared with others.

As a consequence of this, the way was opened for me to publish the Cardman on the Chaplain to the Readers` website, and now extracts will also be included on the Penlee Cluster website, with thanks to Sian`s encouragement and Chris Osborne`s technical skill.

I have two hopes.  The first is that the Cardman will be published as a book and be available for many more people to read.  This is quite likely to happen within the next twelve months.

And, secondly, it is my hope that you will be inspired (as well as entertained) by the words I have been given to share with you.

I hope you will enjoy them.

Chris Kingshott

You will find the chapters of the book at the bottom of the page.

The Cardman : Encounters with the Divine. Some years ago, I started writing `The Cardman`.  It took a long time to complete and then I unsuccessfully tried one of the large Christian publishers to see whether they would be interested in publishing it.  After the disappointment of that, the manuscript lay dormant for quite a few years. However, in the summer of last year, I felt that God was nudging me to get on with it - `I didn`t give you these words to just have them gathering dust on your bookshelf!,`  He seemed to be saying to me.     And my answer to that was, `I cannot do this on my own … I need someone to help me with this.` My prayer was answered in February this year when I had a retreat at Lee Abbey, Devon. It was there where I met Dave Hopwood - Christian writer and speaker – who helped me to publish the novel through Amazon, where the book is now available for millions to see, worldwide.  Following our meeting in Devon, I invited Dave to write his reflections after each of my stories, which he agreed to do.  I believe the result is a good blend of our two styles of writing. `The Cardman` is on sale with Amazon - it is easy to find the book by looking under the category `books` and typing in The Cardman.  I do not regard the book as a business venture.  Rather, it is a part of my ministry of outreach, and one I take very seriously.  With outreach in mind, could I please ask you to recommend it – if you feel happy to do so - to whoever you can, in order to spread the Good News as much as possible.  I hope you enjoy it. Chris Kingshott