James was born in Seco, a small historical coal mining town in eastern Kentucky. He is an only child. His family moved from Kentucky to Detroit when he was five years old. He grew up in Detroit, graduating from Cass Technical High School and receiving his Bachelor of Science degree from Wayne State University. James received a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Child Psychology from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo Ontario, Canada. He was then invited by Dr. John Basmajian, the Dean of the Medical School at Queen’s University, to join his research team. James spent the next two years enrolled in the Medical School at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario where he was involved in research projects involving physically handicapped children.

Since then James has worked in the field of mental health as a therapist and administrator in nine states for over thirty five years. He has presented at a number of national and state conferences and he has been nominated for a variety of state and regional awards for innovative clinical programming. James was among the first to develop and implement a multi-disciplinary battered women’s facility that was operated by a community mental health center. His innovative domestic intervention police training program that was designed to serve community based law enforcement agencies was presented by request to the Los Angeles Police Department.

During his many years of service, James worked directly with a wide variety of distressed children and their families in a variety of institutional and community settings. During this time, James became acutely aware of the poor communication that existed in many of the families, which led to a lack of meaningful family values being instilled in the children. Most of these families were motivated to teach their children— but lacked the necessary basic materials, knowledge and skills to be successful. It was apparent to James that there were very little written or easily available materials available for parents and children to assist in these tasks. These experiences laid the foundation for a series of books for children and their parents that was designed specifically to fill these values and communication gaps in a pleasant, fun, and non-threatening manner.

Following the success of his nationally award-winning book, The Adventures of Seamus the Sheltie, James received many requests from parents asking if he would please write additional stories for them that would deal with some specific and difficult topics that they were having problems with trying to discuss them with their child. These requests led James to the publication of his most recent book, More Tales of Seamus the Sheltie.

James is an avid fan of traditional mountain music. He studied the autoharp and Dobro at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, and the mountain dulcimer under the guidance of a former National Dulcimer Champion when he was living in Paris, Tennessee. James has taught and performed on both the mountain dulcimer and the autoharp at a variety of traditional music and folk festivals across the country. For six years he was the Dobro player in the Illiana Foxfire Bluegrass Band in the Chicago area. Over the past twenty five years, James has also devoted some of his energy to camping, photography, and to competitive practical handgun shooting. James met his wife Carol Anne when she was working as a nurse at a hospital in Paris, Tennessee. They currently reside in Corinth, Mississippi with their faithful and loving Shetland Sheepdog, Seamus. They have three grown daughters and two grandchildren.