Crosswalk:  Your books really seem to resonant with teens and also their parents - especially the themes of "wounded spirits" and bullying in schools. 

Peretti:  Right, Hangman's Curse deals with bullying. The book deals with it a lot more directly, and it's in the movie too. Now the Veritas Project is a series for young people, to encourage them to think, to deal with issues, to not just parrot everything they hear on the boob tube, but to think things through. Hangman's Curse talks about bullying, harassment, respect for others. Nightmare Academy deals with absolute truth. It's a direct confrontation of the popular relativism that you hear so much of today.   

Crosswalk:  Can you talk about your own wounded spirit and how God has used that story in your life?

Peretti:  Well, it started out as a talk that I knew that I always wanted to give, just never had the opportunity. I always imagined giving this talk at a Bible college or something. The time and place would be right and I'd actually come out and say something like, "This is probably going to be the weirdest sermon you're ever going to hear. I've never heard it before. I've never heard a pastor, or a youth leader, or a teacher, or a principal, or anybody ever talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it because I know it affects everybody."  And then I'd go on to tell them about the wounded spirit. 

Well, that opportunity finally did come a month after Columbine. I was going to do a Life On The Edge event for Focus on the Family and I was part of their speakers' pool. I had material already done for it. So I called the organizers and I said, "You know, I think God wants me to talk about bullying and harassment," and they said, "We're with you brother, go for it." So, I got the talk together and I just spilled my guts and it was tough, real tough. I was on the verge of tears the whole time. The talk brought such an incredible response and it was recorded, so Dr. Dobson heard it and played it on his radio station, on his program, and that got such an incredible response, so, that's what gave rise to the book.  Then, right about that same season I was writing the Veritas series and so I said, "Let's deal with that in the Veritas series as well."