If you ever have Sigmund visit your school to talk about reading and writing, one of the first things you'll hear him say is that he finds writing difficult. What you might not hear him say is that he barely passed his high school English classes!
But, during an undergraduate English course in college, his professor encouraged him, and because he loved telling stories, he began to write them and send them to magazines. Finally -- after seven years of rejection letters and about 2,000 pages of writing -- he had his first story published. Then, three years later, his first book was published -- a mystery in the Accidental Detectives series.
Sigmund hasn't forgotten his childhood struggles in English, and has remained true to his desire to inspire kids who haven't yet discovered the joys of reading. His travels take him to nearly 100 schools each year. "I'd like to use my background as a novelist to help kids get excited about reading," he concludes. "Once I found that talking to children about writing could open doors for them. I've been committed to doing that, and I will continue to do so. Kids who can read and write well when they get out of school have a lot better chance of reaching their dreams than kids who still struggle with it."
So Sigmund's "overnight" success is something he doesn't take for granted. He has always been committed to speaking at schools and home school conventions to encourage young reluctant readers into the world of books.
"I continue to spend a certain part of my year speaking to kids, and writing books that grab reluctant readers." Sigmund explains, "From what I've seen, there aren't' a lot of books out there designed for 85 percent of the kids who are not avid readers. Most books are written for the 15 percent who love to read. I have a real concern about that. So, I will keep writing one novel a year - that takes six to seven months - and spend the rest of the year writing for reluctant readers and visiting schools."
Sigmund's faith is also an integral part of his creative goals. Although an overt Christian agenda doesn't appear in his novels, an underpinning of morality and redemption make his books more than tools of escape. Not surprisingly, on of his greatest writing influences is C.S. Lewis. "C.S. Lewis is definitely one of the writers I admire most," Sigmund says, "He wrote as well as possible, knowing that the Truth would speak for itself. He always tried to be logical, and true, and never tried to inject things for the sake of putting them in there. He's the one who said, "There's no Christian way to write, just as there is no Christian way to boil an egg. Writers, whether they are Christian or Agnostic, have to follow good rules of writing and he did. And because of that, the Truth spoke for itself."
Sigmund is married to Christian recording artist Cindy Morgan. The couple and their two young daughters divide their time between homes in Red Deer and Nashville, Tennessee.
 
