Greg Schaffer

I am a Christian, husband, father (to rescue dogs), veteran, and information security executive consultant. My most recent work is Information Security for Small and Midsized Businesses, third edition (2024), a guide for information security for organizations who don't have a Chief Information Security Officer but need to understand some basic information security risk management concepts. My novels include Forgiveness (2014), Leaving Darkness (2018), and Fatherhood (in development), I also have published Summer’s Drowning (2013), a collection of poems; and From the Loft (2017), a collection of horse-humor articles.

I wrote my first novel (unpublished) in high school. It sits in some nondescript box in my basement in its original form on various types of ruled paper. Perhaps one day I will resurrect it.

I began work on what would eventually become Forgiveness in 1991 as a method to deal with my divorce. I found myself fantasizing about “what if” scenarios. What if we hadn’t married early? What could I have done differently to prevent the pain I struggled with daily? I needed to live that fantasy, at least through writing. I wrote in the basement wood-paneled bedroom of my post-divorce house I shared with three others, I wrote during lunch at work in my cubicle, and anywhere I could find a few free minutes away from the world.

In January of 2017, I received a God nudge to pick up the pen again. I sketched out a three-act story on a piece of paper that would tell the story of healing through small group ministries. I had at that time been involved with one such ministry for several years and was very passionate about it, having seen firsthand the positive changes this eight-week group had on people willing to change. Leaving Darkness was published in the fall of 2018.