James Casper
James Casper was born and grew up in southern Minnesota. Apart from living in various Minnesota locales, he has resided in Boston, St. Louis, eastern Tennessee, and London, England. He and his wife of twenty-four years have traveled extensively. Rome is one of their favorite places. He is happiest walking from lock to lock along the Thames in England. His first novel is Everywhere in Chains. You can find more of his writing at his website, FarHavenPress.com.
Ignatius
Novels by
author
Posts from this author at the Novel Thoughts blog.
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A Man Called Dad
June 17, 2015 11:11 pm 4 Comments
My first memories of my father are of his absence. World War Two was raging. He was a soldier somewhere in France, or Luxembourg, or maybe Germany. At times, nobody knew for certain until a letter arrived from the warfront. Written three weeks ago, the letter could only tell us… Read more »
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Chesterton around the Corner
April 7, 2015 11:08 am Leave a Comment
By the time I graduated from Loyola High School in Minnesota, I had read almost everything G.K. Chesterton had written. Not long after, at St. Louis University, I found myself in the office of Dr. Edward Sarmiento as he shared the story of publishing a poem in G.K.’s Weekly years… Read more »
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The Past is a Foreign Country
March 19, 2015 1:06 pm 3 Comments
Much we know about the world would be lost were it not for artistic renderings of the past. Memories otherwise would seldom outlive those who remember. Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars forced professional historians and casual readers alike to revise assessments of the Catholic religion in England in… Read more »
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When 256 Pages Can Say What 15,000 Pages Do Not Say
January 8, 2015 2:51 pm Leave a Comment
As recently reported in the media, the Chicago Archdiocese has released 15,000 pages of its files related to substantiated priest sexual abuse against minors. Previously, the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minnesota in response to legal action, released a large trove of similar records. While these public disclosures are good news,… Read more »
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The Forty-Year Challenge
October 16, 2014 5:51 pm 1 Comment
Not long ago, a former student asked me when I had first ‘gotten serious’ about writing stories. This, of course, is a ‘loaded’ question, and so I replied that I no longer remembered. At my age, now seventy-three, you can get away with evasions like that. In truth, it was… Read more »
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To Have and to Hold
May 12, 2014 1:24 pm Leave a Comment
Marvin’s nephews … The conclusion was too obvious when they brought along their computer games and their cell phones and shrugged off their uncle’s suggestions about activities he had enjoyed as a boy. Fishing, exploring the lakeshore for agates, whizzing downhill on a toboggan, and reading Tom Sawyer had no… Read more »
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The Sometimes Unseemly Art of Self-Promotion
March 17, 2014 2:56 pm 2 Comments
There is nothing new about writers promoting themselves and their writing. Writers have only recently had television talk shows, Internet, and Facebook, but they have always found ways of bringing themselves to public attention. Notoriety was one way: Sir Thomas Malory is reported to have written Le Morte d’Arthur while… Read more »
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First the Fire, then the Spark: Autobiography and Fiction
February 13, 2014 12:54 pm Leave a Comment
Readers of fiction involving ordinary people, everyday life, and easily imagined predicaments, often suspect such stories must be autobiographical. Sometimes this is a correct assumption, as in the case of Charles Dickens’ classic David Copperfield, and often it is not, as in the case of another classic, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson… Read more »
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The Novelist: a Morning Meditation
January 29, 2014 3:23 pm 1 Comment
Given the opportunity, I will say to almost anyone that I think novelists take themselves far too seriously, and for that matter, some even expect to be regarded with awe. The creative engine, though a mighty machine, is easily thrown into reverse. I do not, by the way, exclude myself… Read more »