James was born in a small town in southern Idaho, spent his early life in the Northwest where his father worked for a logging company in western Oregon. Camp 8, where the company store was located, stands out in his memory for its wooden sidewalks, muddy streets, and the ice cream bars he and his brothers and sisters always got when they shopped there.
He was educated in Oregon and California, and in 1958 married Carol Hunt, who, because their families knew each other - and their fathers played in a Country Western band together on the radio station KSLM in Salem, Oregon - he had known since she was five years old. Together, they have one daughter, two grandchildren, and, at last count, four great grandchildren.
James wanted to write since his early teen years, won a short story contest in his early 20s, and some years after he and his wife came to the Lord in 1975 and were baptized in a river in a small state park in Oregon, he began to write Christian books - mostly about prophecy and the End Times.
To this date, he is still writing - and doing his best to serve the Lord.