https://jamesbernardjames.com/home daily 1.0 2019-12-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1576470486862-6RN07GD7MMN4SILQRQM5/BW2.jpg Home https://jamesbernardjames.com/verse daily 0.75 2022-12-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1576465161858-Q2JV81GQMQRT9VJX5A1G/LowCountryVerse.jpg Verse - Restoration of Broken Pieces Poems “He would go with her to Morocco. They would drink tea under colorful tents, and haggle with vendors in Jemaa el-Fnaa Square. He would lay waste to his comfort zones. For her, he would cut out his own heart, and present it on a stake to show how bright she makes it beat.” - From “If You Meet Me in Rabat” https://jamesbernardjames.com/shortfiction daily 0.75 2024-02-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1576465734196-F3E28XVT5FIK5UB96YSU/JakeandLulaProse.JPG Prose - Edible Parts Stories “When they cut my Granddaddy from the branch that had choked him, it groaned like the eye of a storm before cracking and splitting in two. Days later, Mamanda made Uncle Dan cut the whole thing down. There was nothing they could do about the stump, so my uncle—compliant, but always clever—merged his imagination with his pain. Like a penitent burning offerings before an altar, he left his aggressions there; day after increasingly uncertain day, driving his axe into the fleshy wood to split one log, then another, and another; all of it sacrificed for the nobler, greater good … to build, to burn, and to temper the throb of his considerable anger and grief.” - From “Crenepo” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1648ba5f-c26a-4584-8993-5eb7b9843d4c/Owamni+%283%29.jpg Prose - Keeper of Forgotten Things Novel In Progress I skated across an icy LaSalle to an air raid of disapproving horns, passed beneath the red and white bullseye that marked the entrance to the parking garage and pushed against the wind until I reached the corner— which I rounded hard, squatting low and in left wing formation—like Zach Parise bearing down on a goal. I didn’t know a whole lot about hockey, but I’d been to a game once. Snuck in with this chick named Marit whose brothers used to cook meth out of a barn down near Faribault. She had a big ass for a white girl. Most a’ these Minnesota farm girls did. We kicked it all last summer and into the fall, until the barn burned down during a BCA raid on her family’s homestead. Somebody dropped a dime on them brothers. One got killed in the shootout. They sent the other one to Stillwater. Twenty to life. Not exactly sure whatever happened to the girl, she of the soft lips and crooked lower left incisor. Last time I saw her, we shared a bottle of Wild Turkey in the back of a rusted-out van parked down the street from the MIA. After that, we spent hours wandering through an exhibit of vintage Kimonos and replicas of ancient Tea Houses. Drunk, warm, and free. She’d dropped off the grid before, so I didn’t think too much about it. A couple weeks went by before I realized she was gone gone. https://jamesbernardjames.com/about daily 0.75 2024-03-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/b4da3710-1a8b-4a7f-a37b-9843cf051d4e/GWDU5774.jpg About - Bernard James Writing under the pseudonym Bernard James, James Bernard Short‘s singular ambition as a writer is to produce smart, expressive, and culturally authentic content that captures the wide spectrum of aspirations and challenges encountered by persons of color. James’ work has appeared in Callaloo, The New Guard, Auburn Avenue, Blood Orange Review, The McNeese Review, and SmokeLong Quarterly among other literary journals and publications. A former board member of Graywolf Press, James is a 2018, 2017, and 2016 Kimbilio Fellow, and a 2015 Givens Writing Fellow. He holds degrees from Northwestern and The University of St. Thomas and currently calls the Twin Cities his home. For inquiries/information: 4@jamesbernardjames.com https://jamesbernardjames.com/essay daily 0.75 2024-02-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1576626095514-R00OOTW16NXFA4FBH0RX/Essay.png Essay - Something Extra “The charisma that is Jesse B. Semple (Simple) and the grace with which Langston Hughes delivers him to the page are no less impactful when viewed through this updated, curatorial lens. Each story is presented as a conversation that opens a window onto the beauty of pedestrian encounters. Indeed, part of what makes them so beautiful is the ongoing discovery that Simple’s life (our lives) are not pedestrian at all. Hughes elevates the ordinary and shines a spotlight on what is otherwise common with abbreviated prose that cuts to the chase, and by intensifying the mood, brings his subjects into better focus.” - From “Universal, Relatable, Simple" SLQ https://jamesbernardjames.com/publications daily 0.75 2024-02-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1576469684658-ZIM8UH6Y305WUJL2L404/image-asset.jpeg Publications - Publication List “Dispatches from the Man Hut” The New Guard Bang! Winter 2022 “Interstice” The New Guard Bang! Winter 2022 “Aqua Boogie” Blood Orange Review Spring 2020 “L'Étoile du Nord (For George)” Rain Taxi 2020 “Pox (for Philando)” Action, Spectacle Summer 2020 Issue “Up Country Two Countries” Auburn Avenue 2018 Autumn/Winter “Edible Parts” Callaloo 2018 Spring/Summer Issue “Unsullied” The New Guard 2018 Summer Issue “Rootwork” Blood Orange Review Dec 2017 Issue “Black Texas” McNeese Review 2017 Annual Print Issue “Universal, Relatable, Simple” Smoke Long Quarterly Flash Back Series Dec 2016 “Anniversaire sur la rue de Chartres” Columbia Journal Mar 2016 “Jazzcestors ” Columbia Journal Mar 2016 “Heads and Tails” Killens Review of Arts & Letters Fall/Winter Issue 2015 "Fortifications for a Wobbly Bridge: Race Consciousness across the Black Diasporic Continuum" SX Salon – A Small Axe Literary Platform Issue #14, Nov 2013 https://jamesbernardjames.com/read-me-om daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5052176b84aeb45fa5cfcc83/1377097104716-HDI53XJVV0DKZ24A3T68/51e453dee4b06abd3403c22e.png Read Me https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5052176b84aeb45fa5cfcc83/1377096775448-0L7B4Q54H1VLOGFF1DPR/synthetica+%2820130821%29.jpg Read Me https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5052176b84aeb45fa5cfcc83/1377096507573-1MU42OOOOGIM9URAJ9D9/515c4225e4b0afec1218b21e.png Read Me https://jamesbernardjames.com/classes-alt-om daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://jamesbernardjames.com/literature daily 0.75 2026-09-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5df6e6f488a9697f288879f2/1576470486862-6RN07GD7MMN4SILQRQM5/BW2.jpg Literature