Trinidadian-American, Kelvin Christopher James holds a B.Sc. from the University of West Indies (St. Augustine campus), and a doctorate in Science Education from Columbia University Teachers College. He lives in Harlem, New York City. Born in Port of Spain, grown up in Arima, Kelvin left formal schooling at an early age to work as sole assistant to Dr. Gaston. P. Blair, a researcher of Red Ring disease (which still destroys coconut trees just at bearing age). These two were first to explain basic data such as life cycles and transmission mode of the nematodes (Aphelencus cocophilus), which cause the disease.
Beyond this life of teenaged research scientist, Kelvin enjoyed an adventurous youth, hitched his way around the Caribbean archipelago, and found time to be a National athlete. After visiting New York, he chose to stay and mingle. He meandered into the craft of fiction, realized his talent in the field, and eventually abandoned his supervisory job as a technician at Harlem Hospital to pursue the Writer's life.
Villard Books of Random House published Jumping Ship and Other Stories, and Secrets, a novel (which was first runner-up in that year’s Commonwealth Writers Competition). HarperCollins published A Fling with a Demon Lover. Harvard Square Editions published People & Peppers, a romance, and Augments of Change. His short stories have been published in quality magazines such as BOMB; Black Renaissance Noire; American Letters & Commentary; Tupelo Quarterly; NarraSud, in Rome, Italy; The Wall, an online magazine; and many others. His stories have been part of collections such as Children of the Night; Best Short Stories by Black Writers, edited by Gloria Naylor. New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers in America, edited by Kevin E. Quashie, Joyce Lausch, Keith D. Miller, and Ancestral House – the Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe, edited by Charles H. Rowell.
Self-published novels are The Sorcerer's Drum, Web of Freedom, and Mooch, the Meek.
Kelvin has been awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in Literature.
At present he is seeking an agent to help publish his many quirky fables, a new short story collection, and a young adult novel A Lovechild’s Excellent Odyssey.
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