And Now For Something Completely Different...
Going on 23 years as an editor at Investor's Business Daily and having written How to Make Money in Stocks: Getting Started (McGraw-Hill), I've now authored my first novel, Doubting Nikki – A Tale of Faith and Delusion.
In a prior life, I spent years in Japan where, among other things, I translated animation and related books and games into English.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
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J.R.R. Tolkien
It feels both rewarding and odd to have finally published Doubting Nikki, a tale I've wanted to tell for longer than I care to admit.
The reward comes from actually completing the project, telling a story that pulls together many disperse elements of my life — family lore that we're descendants of St. Gemma Galgani, a year abroad at Oxford, a love for C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, time spent at the St. Ignatius Institute studying Christian philosophy, two decades covering the stock market, and 10 years living in Japan working in publishing and entertainment.
The odd part has to do with faith and its close cousin, delusion.
Everyone has faith in something. It can be faith in a religion, or faith in the belief that there is no God or anything else beyond this world. But everyone has faith in whatever it is they believe to be true. Until they don't.
What seems like faith or truth to one person is often viewed as delusion by another. And it's no great secret that even people who aspire to practice their faith — in whatever secular or religious form it may take — often (always?) come up short.
Maybe it's no accident, then, and a sign of God's sense of humor that the first three letters of "faith" are also the first three letters of "fail'.
Exploring the doubts, delights, disappointments and delusions we all experience and struggle with in life provides the underlying theme of Doubting Nikki.
An Odd and Rewarding Journey
About Matthew Galgani
The Japan Angle
While living in Japan for a decade, among other things, I helped establish TokyoPop, a pop culture and entertainment company, then based in Tokyo and Los Angeles.
As a vice president at TokyoPop, I worked on multiple projects with Sony Music Entertainment, Japanese publishing firm Kodansha and others.
From co-translating the animated feature Spring and Chaos to translating games in the Initial D series, a book on the making of Chiyoko: Millennium Actress and other projects, I've translated several properties from Japanese to English over the years.
Prior to TokyoPop, I spent a few years at Bennesse, Japan's largest education company, where I helped edit a monthly magazine for Japanese schoolchildren learning English.
Alongside the C.S. Lewis, St. Gemma and Japan angles, my years involved in the stock market and the media also weave their way into Doubting Nikki as the tale unfolds.
The Media & Market Angle
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.”
C.S. Lewis
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