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 last night’s open-mic at the Luigart Cafe I explained the non-fiction literary craft technique “perhapsing” and gave an illustrative example based on the letters my 18-year-old father wrote my mother while on a troop ship heading to the Philippines to fight the Japanese in WWII.
This weekend I want to honor the sacrifices veterans like my father (on left) and his older brother Isaac (on right) gave. My mother often told me how much my teenage father worried about Isaac when he left home to fight the Japanese over a year earlier than my father did. In one letter to […]
At last night’s Bluegrass Writers Studio open-mic at Dreaming Creek Brewery, I read from a haibun I drafted based upon the remarkable 23 letters my 18-year-old father wrote my mother while attending advanced infantry training at Camp Blanding in the fall of 1944.
Fifty-eight years ago today, my father was killed in Vietnam. Ever since discovering over 400 of his letters over three decades ago, I’ve been conducting archival and field research across two continents and writing about what type of man he was and why he did the things he did. When trying to understand his actions, […]
They say a person dies twice — once when they have their physical death and the second time when we stop saying their name. Since you died over seventy-one years ago, odds are you were close to experiencing that second death if you hadn’t already. But today, over a hundred years after you gave my […]
At last night’s Bluegrass Writers Studio open-mic at Dreamin Creek Brewery, I knew I had to read an excerpt from my investigative memoir where my father writes my mother while nursing a beer at a café in Saigon in 1965. Despite his limited education and no formal training in writing, my father could make readers […]
Today’s CNN article about the JFK assassination discussing why the CIA has not released all it knows reminds me of my father’s death. “It mostly boils down to not wanting to out confidential sources who are still alive, or might be alive, and protecting methods. The CIA says it will wait until people either die or can […]
September 9 is a day that I am always deep in thought of both my mother and father. I suspect it was one of their favorite days. On September 9, 1927, my mother was born. On September 9, 1944, my father enlisted in the Army at Fort Hayes, Columbus, Ohio. On September 9, 1945, my […]
I‘ve been so busy the last few months working on suggested revisions to my investigative memoir and its proposal that I haven’t had a chance to blog. If things go as planned, I hope to have a contract by year end. However, recent events have got me thinking and have led me to do a […]
At last night’s open-mic at the Luigart Cafe, I hadn’t yet titled the essay I’ve been working on and thatI hope to submit to a literary journal later this summer. Immediately afterwards, a fellow writer and good friend sitting next to me, told me to title it “Repentance.” I think she may be right. As […]
James B. Wells