A Little More About James

James actually grew up writing. Using an old Underwood typewriter, he and a friend would type a story, read it and then throw it away and start a new one. That was some sixty-three years ago and James hasn't stopped writing since. His problem was for the majority of those years he was writing for newspapers, a radio station, and corporations - Goodyear and Chrysler. On top of that, raising six sons with his wife, Miriam (Becky) left barely enough time to write a novel or short story worth publishing. After he left all that behind (no, not his wife and kids) he finally was able to get on with his first professional love - novels.

A news article inspired "The Pen Pal Murders." Although his novel is fiction, Falk says it's a situation that could confront anyone at any time. HIs goal, he says, is to write stories, other than science fiction, that no one can say "that could never happen."

Falk writes about three and a half hours a day. He just buries himself in his basement office, turns on some nice music and tries to close his ears to the noise from one to ten grandchildren who love to visit while he works. It isn't too difficult, he says. Having worked in a clattering news room in the days of typewriters, ignoring noise isn't difficult, so the grandchildren, his wife and his two dogs, Beau, a yellow lab and Dingo, an Australian Cattle Dog, are always welcome to his inner sanctum.

Few things deter him from writing. Of course there is work around a beautiful, but nearly a hundred-year-old home, but he can never refuse a golf challenge or a call to play tennis. At the age of 77, James and his son, Ben, who is 37 and an excellent tennis player, reached the semi finals in an open tennis tournament in Livonia, Michigan.

James loves music - all kinds. It's best that he does since all of his sons are musicians. The noise level at the Falk residence at one time was often high to say the least - somebody or group was always rehearsing - and he always felt sorry for his wife. He says that at one time his house looked like a music store. However, the noise level didn't bother him since he had been playing trumpet since he was 15. He's not too active now, but up until a few years ago, he fronted his own Dixieland Band -- The Detroit Saints, and also played with The Bob Hopkins Big Band out of Detroit. It was great, he says, since some of the members at that time had played in bands such as Tommy Dorsey, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Gene Krupa, and the Glen Miller Band that was led by Tex Beneky, to name a few. In 1996 James attended evening music classes at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Michigan for two years. His biggest thrill there was to play with a big band from that school at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Geneva, Switzerland in l998.