Area author talks about his work and his process

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – There’s a saying, “Everybody has one book in them”. A Starkville man has proven that four times over – so far.

Stephen Palmer was talking about those books and his process to the Starkville Rotary Club Monday.

Palmer, a lawyer by training, has completed four books and is working on a fifth.

He describes his writing as political fiction, and he tries to educate on policy positions and entertain at the same time.

His first three books form the Unlikely series and center on a fictional, former Mississippi Governor, Jeff Ackerman.

“Jeff Ackerman runs for president on a whim, and so I use that presidential campaign and his presidency as a kind of platform to have these sort of policy discussions. Jeff Ackerman is a conservative. He is also a Christian. He’s not necessarily a “Christian Conservative”, but he is a conservative and a Christian. And he gets challenged on his faith. His political opponents in the media try to use his faith against him. They question him on his faith. They accuse him of wanting to establish a theocracy in America, all the bad things you hear about Christian politicians. And so he reluctantly, he has to defend his faith, and he stands up as he does that.”

Palmer is already writing a sequel to his current book, Americans Abroad and envisions it as a second trilogy.