James Kaelan entered the UC Davis English program as a Junior — at the age of 17. Two years later, at the age of 19, he entered Boston University’s Fiction MFA program. There he began writing the title novella of his first book, We’re Getting On, under the tutelage of National Book Award-winner Ha Jin. Professor Jin said of Kaelan’s work, “James Kaelan is a fine, intelligent writer. We’re Getting On is so elegantly and imaginatively written that it should be a significant debut.”

After graduating from Boston University in the summer of 2007, James returned to California where he teamed up with Elijah Jenkins. Together, Jenkins and Kaelan turned Flatmancrooked from a literary e-zine into a full-scale publishing house. The company’s website, which publishes fiction, criticism, and articles on the publishing industry, garnered such a following that Esquire Magazine named the site one of the top 5 online literary magazines in the country in 2009.

Last fall James stepped down as Managing Editor of Flatmancrooked to concentrate on writing, and to take a teaching position at Pepperdine University. But Flatmancrooked requested the opportunity to publish We’re Getting On. Working closely with the marketing team, James helped develop the Zero Emission Book Project, and volunteered to ride his bike from Los Angeles to Vancouver to promote it.

James now teaches, writes, and trains (he has a 1,700-mile bike ride to do) in Los Angeles. He’s just completed his second book, a short-story collection entitled Brute and Other Stories. In his spare time he writes criticism for TheMillions.com. His short fiction has appeared in Monkeybicycle, Avery, Flatmancrooked, Opium, Johnny America, and the anthology, Best New Writing.