About

About James. A tortured biography:

• Born in Ventura, raised in South Pasadena
• Lived in Alaska before it was a state, rode my bike in the snow to third grade, with bears and moose in the backyard
• At 14, my uncle took me in a motocycle side-car from LA to Washington DC, where I met a Peace Corps Volunterr and said to myself, "I will join the Peace Corps." My uncle taught me to ride the rails, hiding in box cars, until we were caught in Ohio by railroad detectives.
• UC Santa Barbara pr-med major but also sang Berlioz Requieum in the chorus, wore thrift store three-piece suits to Physics class with a surfboard so after class I could surf (but never stood up)
• Joined the Peace Corps (see my blog) for two years, teaching in a Himalayan village in Nepal. Recently, I had a chance to return to my village and stay with my host family again, returning full circle.
• With my sister, traveled home from Nepal overland through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Crete, and stayed a month in Munich, Germany.
• Wrote hundreds of short stories--at times on a beach in Mexico--with hundres of rejection slips from places like the New Yorker and literary magazines, only publishing a translation of Nepalese folk songs in a scholarly journal of Asian studies.
• Studied two years at USC in a writing program with John Rechy and Jerome Lawrence, writing plays and novels. Then entered the USC doctorate program with Leo Braudy, Ron Gottesman, and Tania Modleski.
• All the while, I was teaching freshmen writing, became a teacher trainer in that program, taught in the Study of Women and Men in Society program, and in the Business School. This is where I became a teacher.
• With my wife, had a child who is now in college, which changed my life.
• Taught at Shalhevet, a coed orthodox Jewish day school.
• Now teaching at The Buckley School, presenting at state and national conferences, following my favorite authors through Twitter, blogs, and publications, and building my own Professional Learning Community.