James has always felt different from others. Growing up Hispanic and "white" in the Bronx probably had something to do with it. Skinny, asthmatic, shy -- he didn't make many friends. He stayed home a lot while other kids went out and "lived." He didn't care much for that stuff. Mom would work for most of the day and Dad didn't seem to care. Books helped. Imagination was a must. He carried around those black-and-white marbled notebooks with him everywhere, jotting down ideas, sketching anime and video game characters, and conducting his first experiments with fiction, ghost stories and murder mysteries, in imitation of his childhood hero RL Stine. He really was a hero for James because the popularity of the Goosebumps series kept James from getting beat up for reading.
Alas, he lost those notebooks to time. He forgot about writing for a while. His teenage years were spent dreaming. At one point he wanted to become a professional wrestler, like the ones on TV -- all 120 lbs of him. Then he wanted to be a goth rocker. Only he forgot he lived in the Bronx and would have to go outside. Those dreams didn't work out in the end. All the while, he felt he had neglected school, something he'd thought he wouldn't need. But in his time away he educated himself on Poe, Shakespeare, science, French. he loved learning. Learning for its own sake. Reason finally hit him in the ass, and he went back to school. After his first English class, he knew he wanted to teach. Predictable. And after his first creative writing class he realized what he'd already known: that he loved writing. Got an MFA. Doubly predictable.
He's usually writing with his free time. If not, a safe bet is that he's reading. There's the rub: for in that reading of writing what writing may come? He writes science fiction and literary fiction stories, novels (forthcoming), poetry, and blog articles. If he can just figure out how to make a living ...
