Author

In the early years growing up in Illinois, James recognized his passion for writing. Several short stories and poems, influenced by his inner darkness, fueling the creativity that would later empower his writing endeavors. His younger sister and brother proved challenging as he got older, and moving to Kentucky didn’t help. He left behind a lot of nice friends and literally felt that he was starting over. After finishing Marion C. Moore high school, he joined Jefferson Community College, and after a semester he enlisted in the military. Towards the end of that part of his life he spent almost six months in Operation Desert Shield. Waiting to go overseas and checking in several times a day, he had little time for leisure; the only writing that he had time for were some letters he would send home to his parents.

James came back to civilian life and started writing again, which he sorely missed. Having been introduced to role playing games with his Dad and brother early in high school, he revisited those memories in some of his short stories. James’ Mom never liked participating in that game and handed over the reins to his Dad to help keep the kids occupied in the evenings; those were great times.

James enjoyed his Dad performing the role of the Dungeon Master. He carefully read each line from the original module that came with the game, while James and his brother made every effort to stay alive and grab every single coin of treasure they could. Later on, that time of his life would give great meaning to what he would enjoy writing and how he would do it, he just did not know it at the time.

Finding more time to read, he focused on the genres of fantasy and horror. Reading R. A Salvatore Anne Rice brought back great memories of growing up with his Dad and brother. He followed several characters as they fought their way through their writer’s trilogies, sparking his love for the trilogy, and writing in general. This lent validly to a computer game called Neverwinter Nights. He played this game and beat it several times before he started looking to the gaming community. There were different versions there, and he wondered how they were created. It turned out that one could make a module, a world if you will, and control its contents. That’s when James brought Despair into being, that’s when his stories first came to life.

The world of Despair was very hard, and like it’s name, it foreshadowed doom. Over the course of a year and numerous complaints about it being too hard, he capitulated and added more quests for even more powerful items, which gave one a false sense of hope – thus the name change to Hope and Despair. Now survival was more on your own shoulders; if you chose to put in the time to quest for items and figure out the game’s puzzles, one would find those items that helped them live. Hope and Despair was  successful for over 11 years, before ending in the fall of 2016. Some day, this world, and the adventures in it will make it into his written works.

Working on that module brought back memories with James and his Dad, which led to them catching up later on in life. James learned about things that he didn’t know his Dad had done, or even had an interest in. One of those was prospecting for gold and minerals. He was a member of the GPAA when he was younger, and had gone out west in search of gold. At that time he lived in Illinois, and he traveled as close as Indiana and as far as Nevada for gold. It didn’t take long for James to realize that they could do that together so he listened to each and every word his Dad spoke when he gave instructions on panning, what gold looked like, where it was found, and everything else gold.

His health failed and the two of them would never go prospecting together, but they did talk about where James was able to go, and on several occasions he brought back classified materials for them to go through together in his garage. When they were younger James wanted his Dad to learn more about computers, and do that with him, but his Dad’s focus was on cars. Later on in life when they caught back up, James needed help with cars, and his Dad needed him for computer-related issues. Funny how things come full circle.

James lost his Mom first, then his Dad. He found himself missing them dearly, and things were dark and sad for quite some time. When one experiences loss it changes you. His writing became darker, and soon afterward, he started his first project which was called Bereft Reality. It drew upon a woman’s inner ability to display weakness whilst wielding great power, displaying the various facets of self-esteem. As the writing of his book came to a close, he saw an interesting read that revealed the darkness that lurks within us all; it was that realization that threw him into psychological horror, into darkness.

In this darkness, James would take us down a long road, leading to several published works. Bereft Reality, Picking Murphys, and First Responder are already published, with Site 123, They Heinous and others still to come. James has just finished book two of First Responder, and has begun the outline for book three, which would complete his first trilogy!

James’ writing focused on psychological horror fiction when he realized his true love for the genre. In all actuality, he enjoyed the shock and horror of all movies, good and bad. It was only a matter of time before he began to write about what he loved. If you enjoy being scared, if you love staring into a dark room and wondering what lies inside, if you walk down a dark road and wonder what that noise was, then James H. Summers is your guy.

James enjoys all things horror, particularly B movies. Some of his favorite authors are Edgar Allen Poe, Clive Barker, J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, J. R. R. Tolkien, Anne Rice, and R. A. Salvatore. A handful of his favorite directors are Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, Peter Jackson, Zack Snyder, Chad Stahelski, and someone who would love to make his dreams come true and get these lovely works onto the big screen.