Windmill Point (Stempel)

Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—Westfield, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., The Citadel
• Currently—lives in western Maryland


Personal
For some thirty-five years Jim has lived with his family at a country location overlooking the Blue Ridge in Western Maryland. His wife, Sandie, teaches physics and astronomy at nearby McDaniel College, while his three children—a daughter and two sons—have moved on to professional careers.  An avid athlete for most of his life, Jim helped coach his children in baseball and basketball while they were young, while an active runner and handball player himself.

Writing Life
A student of the human condition, Jim is the author of seven books that include satire, psychological, scholarly works of historical nonfiction, and historical fiction. His novel Albemarle was nominated for the James Fenimore Cooper Prize in Historical Fiction. His articles have been featured in a wide range of literary journals including Concepts in Human Development, the New Times, and the History News Network. His literary website can be reached at www.jimstempelbooks.com

Jim began writing in college, was a member of the school literary society, and had his first short stories published in the college literary magazine. He then had a number of short works of fiction accepted by a range of literary journals before his first novel, a satire titled American Rain was published in 1992 to considerable critical praise. Booklist, for instance, called American Rain "wonderful reading and great for the heart," while the West Coast Review of Books gave it a Four Star rating and claimed "Lovers of political satire may consider this book a masterpiece because of Stempel’s sly wit and insight." Jim Cox, writing for the Midwest Book Review declared "Jim Stempel’s American Rain is one of the finest novels to emerge from small press publishing this year."

Stempel then turned his attention to the nonfiction topics of science, psychology, and spirituality in his 2001 analysis of modern, emerging spirituality titled When Beliefs Fail; A Psychology of Hope. Of Stempel’s analysis, Dr. Larry Dossey wrote "We are on the hinge of history with a new view of reality taking shape before our eyes. For a captivating glimpse of this emerging worldview, When Beliefs Fail is highly recommended, while Ken Wilber called it "a warm, lively, and altogether accessible introduction to the growth and development of human consciousness from birth to enlightenment."

The study of human growth and psychology led naturally to the conundrum of human warfare, which Jim addressed in his 2012 analysis titled The Nature of War; Origin and Evolution of Violent Conflict, which delved into the psychological origins of human violence and warfare. Writing for Choice: Current Reviews For Academic Libraries, D.M. Digrius suggested that The Nature of War "offers ripe fruit by which to contemplate humanity’s future," while American author, Mark Waldman (Words Can Change Your Brain) insisted that "This is the most intelligent, penetrating, and insightful study of human warfare I’ve ever read."

Jim Stempel is also considered an authority on the Eastern campaigns of the American Civil War. His articles on the topic have appeared in North & South, Military History Now, and the History News Network. He has authored two nonfiction books on the Civil War (The Battle of Glendale; The Day the South Nearly Won The Civil War, and The CSS Albemarle and William Cushing), along with the historical fiction work titled Albemarle. Stempel’s Civil War works are routinely praised. Of Glendale, for instance, critic Hank Demond, writing for the Not Too Late Show wrote that "The suspense is bone-rattling and the storyline chilling. That’s why us history buffs salivate over books like this. You learn the realities of battle while your imagination runs wild." Likewise, the Lone Star Book Review gave The CSS Albemarle a "Wow!" rating, and exclaimed "This is a very exciting naval story and will hold the reader’s attention through-out."  Jim’s latest Civil War novel, Windmill Point, was released by Penmore Press in late March, 2016. (From the author.)