James D. McCallister

author of the Edgewater County series

Cover Reveal: The Night I Prayed to Elvis

Author Thrilled to Present Long-Gestating Story Collection Much more to say on these stories later, but for now, here’s the cover (and here, posts from the past regarding this material. These characters and situations are “near and dear” to the heart around the bustling world HQ of venerable Mind Harvest Press, so knowing the work […]

My Writing Journey, Pt 7: I Grieve These Enormous Endings

Local Author Ponders Completion of a Life Project The title of this piece, a snatch of phrase taken from my poet’s notebook, popped in my head one day and I wrote it down. That’s what a writer does. A wise one, anyway.

My Great Year

Local Author Reports on 2021, A Most Prosperous Year Nothing earth-shattering or tl;dr here, merely a note celebrating what turned out as one of the best years I’ve ever lived. I reached a level both of personal best in terms of my health and physical well-being, as well as business success at our little hippie […]

Ursula K. Le Guin and The Lathe of Heaven

Local Author Discovers 50 Year-Old Truth-Drop in SF Novel I first read The Lathe of Heaven, a fine science fiction novel by the inestimable writer and thinker Ursula K. Le Guin, as a curious teenager and fan of such speculative fiction. I read the book after watching a television adaptation which had compelled my imagination, […]

MoHG Day is Here!

Author Celebrates Release of Penultimate Novel Well, it’s decades in the making, it almost made me (more) famous, it nearly killed me to get right, but now Mansion of High Ghosts is in the world. I’ve never been more glad to be done with one of these projects, but at least I can say that […]

New DOGS Cover

Yep. An indie author with a title he hopes may exhibit evergreen tendencies will occasionally slap on a fresh cover and call it springtime again. My own catalog, as King’s Highway and Fellow Traveler will both attest, is no exception to this phenomenon.

Another Creative Season Ends

Author Laments Latest Bout of Postpartum Depression “Well,” as one character in Mansion of High Ghosts says after a particularly vivid incident, “that happened.” In the case of the novel in question, the “event” now unfolded took its time—twenty years. But as of June 2021, it’s done and in print. A rocket once bound for […]

MoHG Proof in Hand

Author Touts Heft of Weighty New Tome Twenty-one years after I embarked on my adult writer’s journey with an eye toward professionalism, publication, awards and Baldwin’s ‘nice little shelf of books’ to leave behind, I’ve accomplished it all. Life’s work success. Every box checked. “Dreams do come true.” But one last peak remained.

MoHG Ebook Link Now Live

Thirty-Year Literary Journey Nears Culmination When I first sat down to try to write a novel steeped in the real tragedies I experienced, in the early 90s, I had neither the distance from the events, nor the writing chops. All that would change.

Throes of Art-making

Author Reports from the Literary Trenches Following the completion of Dixiana and its sequels, I took a year off from ‘the chair,’ as Appalachian literary bard Ron Rash would term it, or at least the long-form sort as readers of my poetry saga will recall. I needed a break. The seven-year traverse in writing, editing and publishing […]