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James Hudson Raymond
James Hudson Raymond
	"I need a reset button!" "I need a reset button!"
Occupation	scientist/writer/musician/natural philosopher
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Education	B.S.
Alma mater	Portland State University
Genre	Historical Fiction; Science Fiction; Socio-Political Commentary; Religious History; Travel Writing
Notable works	The Luxury of Violence, An Age of War, the Healing Man, the House over the Pit, Last of the Faux-hicans, Kerguelen Harbinger, Trial of Lucifer, the Vivarium, the Jack Saturday series, the Lineage series
Spouse	Chandra Chase
Children	Grant Raymond; Pavao Raymond

James Hudson Raymond (March 1, 1976) was a 21st century American novelist and short story writer. His work often employs his personal thoughts on philosophy, society, politics, and religious history and/or interpretation.

Biography

Raymond was born in Ft. Lewis, Washington, the middle of three children to Frazier Raymond, Jr. (April 4, 1950) a drill sergeant in the United States Army and avid fisherman, and Joyce Annette Zeman (July 6, 1949), an office clerk/manager and member of the Baha'i Faith.

Prior to the birth of his younger brother, Frazier Raymond III, the family moved to a small town near the military base, Steilacoom, Washington. They lived there for eight years until the military transferred his father to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, which is where he wrote his first story, The King with a Load of Wishes.

In 1987, the military transferred his father to Schofield Barracks, Hawai'i. Three years later his parents filed for divorce. He later claimed that he had considered it a traumatic and heartbreaking experience. The family, now without the father, found a medium-sized apartment in the nearby town of Wahiawa, Hawai'i. During this time his mother survived a bout with cancer. It wasn't until his sophomore year that he took up writing again and produced the ultra-violent The Luxury of Violence. A sequel was planned, but never materialized as much of his free time after school was spent working at a Pizza Hut. He also sought to write an X-men movie, which never materialized.

In 1993, tiring of island life, Raymond decided to move to New Iberia, Louisiana and stay with his father. However, his father, still reeling from his failed marriage began struggling with alcohol. Fortunately, his grandmother, Mabel Raymond was there to lend support. He spent most of his time either working or hanging out with cousins. When he graduated in 1994 from New Iberia Senior High School he took a four day train ride across the south and up the west coast to Seattle, Washington. There he met his sister on his way to Walla Walla, Washington.

In Walla Walla, Raymond stayed with his mother's relatives. It was here that he started becoming more socially active, attending parties where drugs and alcohol were readily available. In 1995 Raymond moved into a place behind his mother's aunt with is cousin, Bryan. It was during this time that he began nurturing an interest in religious history sparked after reading a copy of Gleanings of the Writings of Baha'u'llah. The next Spring he moved to Bellingham, Washington to live with his sister and her recently laid off roommate. While there he continued to take notes on religious history that eventually turned into an interest in Anthropology.

By the summer's end he moved back to Walla Walla and moved into a friend's house, Matt. They formed a small rock band with Raymond on drums and played a few shows. By the next year the band imploded, but all remained friends. He then moved into another friends basement and began attending Walla Walla Community College where he enrolled in biology, math, anthropology, and English.

In June 1999 he earned his Associate's and moved to Olympia, Washington to attend Evergreen State College, but he was unable to cover the cost of tuition. Fortunately, he got onto a Geodetic Surveying crew for WADOT, however, this lasted only two months, until all temporary employees were laid off. The lay off lasted four months over the winter.

During this time Raymond gathered all his notes and spent late nights organizing, brainstorming, and writing minimally. This bout of unemployment ended when he landed a job as a grocery clerk. From this job he saved enough money to put a down payment on a computer. This allowed him to digitize all his notes in preparation for producing drafts.

In 2001, Raymond moved down to Portland, Oregon, enrolled at Portland State University, and earned his Molecular Biology degree in 2005, while working in a cancer research lab at Oregon Health Sciences University. This period saw an increase in writing activity that helped produce background story for his novel War of Ages. He also continued work on various short stories.

In 2003 Raymond met model Chandra Chase and began dating her. Upon her graduation from Washington State University they visited the cities of Florence, Siena, Lucca, and Pisa.

In 2009, ten years after his first layoff, Raymond was laid off from OHSU. He and his wife, Chandra, moved to Camas, Washington and lived above a funeral home for two years. After another layoff from Washington State University he and his wife were forced to move from the funeral home and into her parents' house in Vancouver, Washington. He still seeks full time employment and continues to write and has completed his fifth draft of a Batman screenplay that picks up where The Dark Knight ended.

On August 15, 2009, Raymond married Chandra Chase (January 3rd, 1982) in a Baha'i wedding ceremony. They honeymooned in the Mediterranean Sea and visited the cities of Rome, Naples, Athens, Ephesus, Istanbul, Mykonos, Port Said, Cairo, and Alexandria. The previous year Raymond visited the cities of Amsterdam, Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Salamanca, Coimbra, Fatima, Lisbon, Seville, Gibraltar, Fez, Marrakesh, Casablanca, Rabat, Granada. In 2015 during the Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, he visited Brussels, Bruges, Luxembourg, Waterloo. Raymond took as many notes of what he saw and heard in his travels to these cities and now forms the basis for his travel writing.

Writing career

In Hawai'i he wrote the Luxury of Bitching at age 15.

Once back in Washington he began planning his tremendous work the War of Ages. In between stints of writing other short stories, re-writes of the Luxury of Bitching, he chipped away at this great work. He developed the back stories of characters and institutions of faith, commerce, and societies.

In the 2000s. lotr inspired began taking writing classes and continued developing war of ages this was also a time of pushing his creative boundaries in writing, but none of the writing amounted to anything.

Raymond's writings are characterized by viscous procrastination and insurmountable distractions.

Bibliography

Novels and Novellas

The Luxury of Violence

Screenplays

The Gods
Batman: Dead or Alive

Short story collections

Unpublished works

War of Ages (written 1999-2020)