James D. McCallister

author of the Edgewater County series

UPDATED: DOGS OF PARSONS HOLLOW Screenplay Progress

UPDATED 2/27/13 11:20am EST All right! The first draft of DOGS OF PARSONS HOLLOW, the screenplay, is in the can. Thank goodness. At 131 pages I feel that it’s too long, but a revision will sort out problems of pacing and length. In any case, it’s a wonderful feeling to yet again realize a long-held […]

THE LIMELIGHT Radio Promo Appearance Today

Listen live today to WUSC, 90.5 FM, during the 2:30-2:45 slot on The Columbi-Arts and Music Show, hosted by Kyle Petersen. Along with a couple of the other contributors to Muddy Ford Press‘s THE LIMELIGHT: A Compendium of Contemporary Columbia Artists, I’ll be on the air live promoting the book and the launch event on Sunday. We’ll be discussing the […]

My Writing Journey — Part 3

As established in the first part of this ongoing series, my introduction to literature began with Poe, which stoked in me a taste for the macabre. In the mid- to late-70s, was there a more well publicized and successful go-to person for such material than Stephen King? Nope. And so, that’s where I went: Carrie, Salem’s […]

THE LIMELIGHT Drops This Sunday!

How exciting is this? We’re less than a week from the release of The Limelight—A Compendium of Contemporary Columbia Artists, Muddy Ford Press’s anthology of essays documenting some of the most vital members of our local arts community. I’m quite honored to be included with some thoughts about novelist Robert Lamb and his influence on […]

Edgewater County Map

Here’s something fun for Monday morning… a WIP sketch of the layout of my fictional Edgewater County, SC. Needs more detail and a couple of town names yet, but this is good enough for the moment. Looking forward to seeing this fully rendered. NOTE: The action in DOGS OF PARSONS HOLLOW takes place in the […]

FELLOW TRAVELER Review in Dead Studies Vol. 3

Among the reviews featured in the 2013 edition of Dead Studies, the third volume, is one of Fellow Traveler—a very strong and positive review. Here is a pull-quote. “The novel is to a large degree about not only how first- and second-generation Deadheads keep in touch with what they learned from the Dead but also […]

More DOGS Requests!

To balance out the minor setback of a pass earlier in the week from Bantam/RH, Friday brings three new requests for the manuscript of DOGS OF PARSONS HOLLOW, any of which could deliver results. Pitches by my agent at Inklings Literary, Michelle L. Johnson, have gone out to a few more editors as well, so these requests […]

My Writing Journey — Part 2

“Fear is the mind-killer.” —Frank Herbert, Dune The line struck me, and stuck with me. I had a long way to go to conquer Fear, however. What I didn’t fear was plunging into reading a dense, complex novel like Dune, but had to admit that I didn’t enjoy that level of narrative world building (see […]

UPDATED: Fellow Traveler Event in ABQ!

UPDATE: My talk yesterday went so well—everyone seemed to really respond to my description of the process of conceptualizing and writing Fellow Traveler! I’m among wonderful folks I admire and love (and with whom I have a lot of fun), so coming to this annual meeting of likeminded scholars has already been a fulfilling and […]

Review (VOD): COMPLIANCE (2012)

Dir-Scr: Craig Zobel After causing a minor stir at Sundance but then not really getting distributed to any significant degree, Craig Zobel’s Compliance examines a true story from 2006 about a fast food manager Sandra (Ann Dowd) who receives a call from alleged police officer claiming that an attractive, young female employee Becky (Dreama Walker) […]