I’ve published accessible biographies of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and the story of their remarkable friendship, life-changing for both of them. Related to their lives is the literary circle of friends, the Inklings, of which I’ve written a group biography, The Oxford Inklings.

Some events

Much of my time is tied up with researching and writing

my current books and contributed chapters in progress,

and book editing or related work with authors.

In recent years I spoken at conferences in varied places.

One related to C.S. Lewis as a Christian communicator

(the national Desiring God Ministries conference in

Minneapolis, USA) and the other to the Inklings (held by

the Inklings Fellowship in Oxford). I also gave the Edgar

B. Hollis lecture at the historic Carnegie Library in

Newnan, Georgia, USA, and a lecture on C.S. Lewis as a

broadcaster in Cambridge (at the Round Church for

Christian Heritage). I was also a main speaker at an

international congress in Madrid called “Fantastic

Literature: recreation and realism”, based around C.S.

Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, which was held at CEU San

Pablo University.

In Spring 2015 I taught some classes on the Inklings to students at

Belmont University in Nashville, and lectured there and at

Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. This was

followed by speaking at a conference retreat one glorious

weekend in Montreat, North Carolina. Before returning to

the UK I made another visit to Newnan, Georgia, which

included talking to two classes at Jefferson Parkway

Elementary School on Narnia. On a stopover in Chicago

for a few days on my return flight from Atlanta I was able

to research at The Wade Center Wheaton, do a live radio

interview in Chicago, visit my publisher at IVP, and give a

lecture at the Wade! Since then I participated in a

memorable and in depth Inklings Forever conference at

Taylor University, Indiana. The conference talks and panels

have been published in Inklings Forever X (Winged Lion

Press, 2017).

More recently, a lecture I gave at the Temenos Institute, UK (“C.S. Lewis, the ‘Imaginative Man’, the Self and the Other”) was published in The Temenos Review.

Translations

Various of my books have been translated into a total of

about 17 languages, those translated most being Tolkien

and C.S. Lewis: The story of their friendship (The gift of

friendship) and AD33: The year that changed the world, as well

as my biographies of C.S. Lewis and of Tolkien.

N E W *** Available October 23, 2020: