James B. WellsJAMES B. WELLS is a retired criminology and criminal justice professor in the School of Justice Studies in the College of Justice, Safety, and Military Science at Eastern Kentucky University, and is the recipient of the 2025 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences John Howard Award, an award given intermittently, upon significant demand, to recognize an individual who has made significant and sustained contributions to the practice of corrections. A former carpenter, soldier, and correctional officer in a super-maximum-security prison and later as a researcher/planner assisting architects in prison design, he has multiple degrees, including an M.S. in Criminal Justice, a Ph.D. in Research, and an MFA in Creative Writing. He’s authored or co-authored over sixty-five books, chapters, articles, and essays, as well as over a hundred and fifty research reports for various local, state, and federal agencies. Recent essays from his research and memoir work appear or are forthcoming in Collateral Journal, About Place Journal, Wild Roof Journal, Military Experience and the Arts, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, Shift, Proud to be: Writing by American Warriors, Trajectory Journal, and From Pen to Page III: More Writings from the Bluegrass Writers Coalition.
His investigative memoir about his father's still CIA-classified death in Vietnam in 1965, titled Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, will be launched on Father's Day weekend, 2025. Links to publications, presentations, trailers, social media, blog, and other information can be found at https://jamesbwells.com. James enjoys spending much of his leisure time with his spouse on their Lexington, Kentucky farm located on the palisades of the Kentucky River, where he is an organic gardener and beekeeper.
At my MFA’s (EKU Bluegrass Writers Studio) Alumni open mic night, I read a piece from Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew (to be released Father’s Day 2025) that illustrates the nonfiction literary craft technique I used throughout my investigative memoir. That technique, used in combination with triangulated […]
Time to celebrate again. I just achieved another significant milestone by meeting the deadline to submit all the blurbs for my investigative memoir to my publisher, Milspeak Books. I sent them yesterday, July 1, which is also the 46th wedding anniversary of my wife Brenda and me. I am thankful to the influential figures who […]
In my investigative memoir Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew (to be released Father’s Day 2025 by Milspeak Books), I write: “It’s remarkable how something as trivial as a letter, a ring, and some alcohol can allow a father and son to bridge the gap between 1965 […]
This Father’s Day I’m thinking of the greatest way I can honor my father, a man I barely knew when he was killed in Vietnam in 1965. My investigative memoir, Because: A CIA Coverup and a Son’s Odyssey to Find the Father He Never Knew, will be released on Father’s Day 2025, 365 days from now […]
At yesterday evening’s open mic at the Kenwick Table, I read a piece that ended with a quote from filmmaker, poet, and artist Jonas Mekas: “In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.”
I’m excited to learn that an essay I wrote about discovering the man responsible for the lives of everyone on my father’s side of the family for the last 100 years will soon be published by a prestigious journal. Southeast Missouri State University Press Dear James Wells, We are pleased to tell you that we’d […]
Some of the most remarkable and valid data contradicting what the US government told us and the media about the circumstances of my father’s death came from former Air America personnel & the Air America archives. The last few days, I was at another Air America reunion in Dayton, Ohio, not to collect more data […]
This Memorial Day weekend I find myself thinking again of my father’s death in Vietnam. At one time, I was upset that my father, who was killed very early in the Vietnam War (September 27, 1965), doesn’t have his name on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. If his name were there, it would be on […]
There were so many literary events happening in and near Lexington yesterday afternoon. I was fortunate enough to be scheduled to read again at the Luigart Café, a terrific venue for music, poetry, and prose. I read prose poetry and an essay piece inspired by my father’s letters and archival and field research. I’m thinking […]
Interestingly, the last two novels I read were fictional stories about how the dead can still speak to us. This Mother’s Day, I think about how the letters from my father and a note from my mother, discovered after their deaths, served as vital answers to questions not yet asked by anyone, which, after many […]
James B. Wells