Cary James (1935–2018)

Cary James was born in Virginia, and received degrees from the College of William and Mary and the University of California at Berkeley. For two decades he practiced architecture in the San Francisco Bay area, before becoming a professional writer. He has published short stories, poems and book reviews, and served as chair of the Fiction Award Committee of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association. He is the author of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel, a photographic essay on that now-demolished building; Julia Morgan, a young person’s biography of the San Francisco architect; and King & Raven, his first novel. Baranaby Conrad once defined the full life as one in which “you build a house, plant a tree, create a child, and fight a bull.” James regrets that he has not yet met his bull. He lives in Mill Valley California with his wife Elaine.