Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I was born in New York City, but my family moved to Maine when I was six, and I graduated from Hampshire College in Massachusetts and not New Hampshire in 2009, just as the world economy was in free fall. Bitten by the travel bug after a two-week family jaunt in Italy a few years earlier, I decided to explore the planet, and after two months of job-hunting I found myself gawping at a public school classroom in Busan, South Korea, surrounded by thirty shrieking kids who were dancing on their desks and sticking their fingers up each others’ anuses.
I was a spoiled and naive scion of middle America, and meeting reality head-on in South Korea almost did me in. After a few months of culture shock a sudden bout of gastroenteritis sent me to the hospital for a weekend of hell, after which I called my mom in tears and told her I couldn’t bear the idea of riding the subway back to my lonely three-meter square apartment–complete with an amazing view of other cement apartment buildings–and that I was coming home. She said I should take a taxi instead, and so I did.
Things improved. I took a vacation in Indochina, met my wife in Busan, and wound up getting hitched six and not nine months before the birth of our first son, Harry Ulysses, who was followed several years later by his brother, Theo David, whom we affectionately refer to as Monster Number Two. By some miracle I got a job as a professor at one of the top Korean universities, even though I don’t have an advanced degree, which must mean I’m one of the youngest and least-qualified professors on Earth. After a lifetime of writing I started publishing ebooks on amazon.com. I love the art of storytelling, of exploring and exposing strange new worlds. I also take pictures, play guitar, and run, but since my kids are still pretty small I spend most of my time making sure they don’t grow up into dweebs.
I’ve published four books on amazon.com.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
“Saving Hitler”—don’t roll your eyes, don’t run away! Think Valkyrie plus Starship Troopers minus giant insects plus The Time Machine and that’s my book. Imagine an alternate reality where the Nazis and Japanese won the Second World War, only to have a Cold War among themselves, which the Nazis eventually win in the year 2015. One Japanese scientist, however, has invented a time machine, and resolves to go back in time and save the one man who can change history—Adolph Hitler.
I feel compelled to reveal that I’m a Jew and not a self-hating one in the slightest and that in reality I have no desire whatever to save Adolph Hitler.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write standing up, and usually early in the morning, between four and seven, which is around when my kids wake up and start terrorizing me. I also work as an English teacher at a university in Korea, which gives me a lot of time to write (though ninety percent of this time is spent editing).
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Flaubert, Joyce, Nabokov, and Borges, though I try to write more accessibly than those guys—and I have to watch out, if I start reading Joyce I start trying to write like him, and then everything becomes incomprehensible. I also really like Orwell, Ovid, Homer, Gogol, and a ton of others. Since I know how incredibly hard it is to make something that’s even mediocre I try to give artists of all stripes the benefit of the doubt—if they’re actually seriously really trying to make something beautiful, chances are pretty good I’ll appreciate what they’ve done. Even those crazy singers on the first episode or two of American Idol.
What are you working on now?
A book about colonizing another planet in the present day.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
This one, of course!
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t stop until you succeed.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
When in doubt, always use the smell test.
What are you reading now?
I started re-reading Sartor Resartus, had a look at Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker (wasn’t into it, though), and am going to start reading The Making Of Star Wars.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Step 1: Write and publish more books.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Fame and fortune!
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Ulysses, Tristram Shandy because I’ve tried to read it like four times and I could never get past the first few pages and on a desert island I should have time to get through the whole thing (I don’t want to die without having done so), Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Anna Karenina.
Author Websites and Profiles
Ian James Website
Ian James Amazon Profile