James D. McCallister

author of the Edgewater County series

THE PROGNOSTICATORS (Featured Short Story)

Here’s one of my favorite unpublished stories, one that’s not only garnered numerous rejections, but zero awards. Who cares? At ECC, we’re able to publish ourselves. Enjoy. Note: This short story also inspired a full-length feature screenplay, the first I’d written in many years. I’m proud of that piece, too, which has also gone nowhere. At […]

STATE OF THE PROJECTS Spring 2014

Here’s an updated rundown on my various unpublished manuscripts. — MANSION OF HIGH GHOSTS—As we know from this wonderful news back in July, 2013, MoHG, as my original literary epic is known ’round these parts, is under consideration for publication from Story River Books as part of the second slate of titles from this exciting new fiction imprint at the […]

Kurt Vonnegut, A Mantra, and Me

Yes, We Have No Nirvanas I grew up wanting to be a writer. An only child who spent lonely afternoons and summers at the home of grandparents who lived in a neighborhood without kids, books and reading were (insert drumroll) my constant companions. Yawn. How many times have we heard those very words out of […]

Review (Live Music): PHISH Halloween at Boardwalk Hall

Better late than never, and in acknowledgement of the new Phish album due next month, here’s a never-posted review of last year’s epic Halloween concert. — For the second time in four years, Phish, Vermont’s perpetually popular group of prog rock virtuosi, returned to Atlantic City for their typically-legendary Halloween run. Anticipation, through the roof; […]

DIXIANA . . . Done!

But you know how that goes. In the writing game, it’s premature to call anything ‘done’ until the final product is published. In this case, by completion we mean that I’ve managed to get all scenes written for what I think of as the ‘second draft,’ but that in reality represents the first comprehensively detailed and finished version […]