Frank Peretti

Frank Edward Peretti (born January 13, 1951) is a New York Times best-selling author of Christian fiction, whose novels primarily focus on the supernatural. As of 2012, his works have sold over 15 million copies worldwide. He has been described by the New York Times as creating the Christian thriller genre. Peretti is best known for his novels This Present Darkness (1986) and Piercing the Darkness (1989). Peretti has held ministry credentials with the Assemblies of God, and formerly played the banjo in a bluegrass band called Northern Cross. He now lives in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho with his wife, Barbara. Frank E. Peretti was born in Lethbridge in southern Alberta, Canada, but raised in Seattle, Washington, for most of his life. As a child, he had a cystic hygroma, a facial tumor which affected his ability to speak until later receiving surgery and speech therapy. He became a natural storyteller who regularly told monster stories to neighborhood children. After graduating from high school, he began playing banjo with a local bluegrass group. He married his wife, Barbara, in 1972. Later, he studied English, screen writing and film at UCLA, and assisted his father in pastoring a small Assembly of God church on Vashon Island from 1978 to 1983. That year, he gave up his pastoring position and began taking construction jobs to make ends meet.