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The Review of Why I Dyed My Hair Purple I Didn’t Expect to Get.
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The Review of Why I Dyed My Hair Purple I Didn’t Expect to Get.

A full-circle moment for my book and a theme I didn’t consider.
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Last Sunday, I held a private reception for family and friends to celebrate the release of Why I Dyed My Hair Purple and Other Unorthodox Stories. Among them were multiple members of our church.

Given that several essays in this book deal with how we once attended a legalistic religious community that didn’t value the arts, it meant a lot to me to see so many of them, including our pastor and his wife, in attendance.

But it got even better.

A few days later, at our Wednesday night prayer service, our pastor gave everyone a glowing plug for my book.

He said that it not only gives a look into my life experiences as a Christian, but presents a good resource for understanding those who are on the fringes of Christianity or don’t feel accepted.

Then, he exhorted everyone to read it and see if it was for them or possibly an unsaved loved one.

It was the most powerful moment I’ve experienced in the last two weeks of this book’s release.

There are two things you need to know so you can grasp why this is such a big deal. The first is that at the church we once attended, the leadership was more likely to rebuke me than praise me—and my unusual way of seeing the world was usually the impetus for it.

Second, we now belong to a relatively conservative reformed congregation. You might think they wouldn’t exactly be first in line to promote a book called Why I Dyed My Hair Purple.

But you’d be wrong. At least, I was.

When I write nonfiction, I’m committed to honoring the authority of scripture and practicing sound doctrine—even when I’m writing about punk rock and film (Austin Powers included).

The fact that I was affirmed as able to remain doctrinally orthodox while writing about some very, well…unorthodox topics, was a big deal for me.

It also, though, made me reconsider a purpose to this book that I wasn’t aware of when I originally wrote it.

Writing teachers often say that you should always write with your ideal reader in mind. In fact, my company, Inkling Creative Strategies, uses what I call an Ideal Reader Avatar. It’s a concept I stole from my time in the marketing world that lets you craft a profile for the person you imagine reading your work. This way, you can refer back to this person in order to craft an experience that would speak to his or her needs.

And indeed, when I was writing Why I Dyed My Hair Purple, I wrote with one ideal reader in mind.

Here she is:

Meet Kori Frazier. She’s about a week shy of seventeen, and she just won first place at a speech and debate tournament. Obviously, she’s pretty psyched. After all, she spent hours practicing her presentation, and that was in addition to running herself ragged with homework and studying for an AP History test, which she got an A on (an A-, actually).

She’s also barely sleeping, is suffering from severe depression, and feels alienated from everyone around her. On top of all this, ever since terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center a few months ago, she’s stopped debating about whether God exists, because it’s pretty clear he doesn’t.

Kori has a friend who shares the Gospel with her by email at Christmas and Easter. She calls it “the Jesus letter” and always laughs at it, then promptly deletes it. She watches South Park and loves it when they make fun of Christianity.

She knows a couple of people at school who are Christians, but they aren’t very nice to her, which is par for the course for what she’s seen from their religion.

I often wonder: if Kori Frazier from 2001 was somehow zapped into 2025 and saw my life now, what would she think?

Probably that I sold out. After all, I’m married (Kori was adamant about not needing a boyfriend) and I’m not only a Christian, but have now written a book about being one.

Still, she’d see that she who used to persecute Christ through her thoughts and behavior now preaches the faith she used to mock.

Where have we heard that one before?1

Kori Frazier is who I wrote this book for.

Kori Frazier was furious at God. She thought Christianity was a fairy tale and a pipe dream.

But Kori would have shown up for the pop culture references in this book.

Buddy Holly? Heck yeah. Nanci Griffith? Even better! The Shawshank Redemption? Bring it!

In fact, she loved that stuff so much that she would might be willing to come for the pop culture-y stuff and stay for the theology.

In “Closer to Fine,” a pivotal essay in my collection, I describe how a friend from college told me that, contrary to what I believed, I could be a Christian and still listen to the Indigo Girls.

But it’s not about the Indigo Girls. Not really.

It’s more about me understanding for the first time that God would be willing to accept me right where I was. I wouldn’t have to take away parts of myself that I thought He wouldn’t consider holy enough.

For me, the idea of God accepting me had to do with my creativity and the art I loved. But for others, it’s different. Some people think they need to clean themselves up before they can come to Christ, taking care of their sins in private before approaching Him.

They don’t realize that they are powerless to do this on their own.

Which brings me back to what happened at my church on Wednesday night.

My pastor affirming my work was only part of what made the experience powerful.

The other part was realizing that Why I Dyed My Hair Purple is a book about evangelism.

It’s about how we talk to those who are on the borders of Christianity—either those who profess Christ or those who are worn down by life and seeking the freedom no one but Him can provide.

It’s about understanding their language and life experiences so we can speak to them and plant seeds the Spirit can then water into yearning for truth, not watering down the truth or compromising on it, but showing that Jesus has promised to never, ever turn anyone away who comes to Him by faith.2

Last week, one of the devotions I subscribe to sent out a study on Jonah. It focused on all the times throughout the book that God “prepares” things. There’s “the great fish” that famously swallows Jonah, the plant that grows after he preaches in Nineveh, the worm that devours it, and the blasting, hot wind that causes Jonah to despair.

God is preparing things all the time. People. Places. Sermons. Even books, music, and movies.

One of the keys to effective evangelism is understanding that what He prepares often goes beyond the limited framework we assume He uses.

We just need to be aware of it. And we especially need to be aware that, whether we intend it or not, it might end up being our writing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea below. If you’ve read my book, do you see it as being an effective evangelism tool? I’m new to this realization, so I’d also love to hear your thoughts.

Some announcements:

Why I Dyed My Hair Purple is currently out of stock at Calla Press Publishing’s website, but more copies are coming soon! Amazon and Barnes and Noble still have it.

Also…if you live in the Nashville, Tennessee, area, I’ll be coming to town this week for a book signing at Landmark Books in Franklin on Thursday at 6:00.

I’ll have books for sale (they’re apparently a hot commodity now) and am looking forward to connecting with readers in person.

1

“They only were hearing it said, ‘He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me.” - Galatians 1:23-24

2

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” - John 6:37-40

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