Poet Bio: James A. Tweedie

James A. Tweedie is a retired Presbyterian pastor who has lived and served in California, Scotland, Utah, Australia, Hawaii, and Washington State.

He fell in love with poetry during his Junior-year high school English class through the influence of an eccentric, yet inspired, student teacher, and has been writing poems ever since. He holds four earned degrees; in Music (BA), Humanities (BA, MA), Divinity (MDiv), and Ministry (DMin), along with a Certificate from the University of Edinburgh, New College, Scotland. For pleasure, he composes and records music, sells his photography at a local gallery, volunteers and serves as Board Chair with a program that provides the only free hot meal program in the county, acts, writes and directs with a local repertory company, edits, designs, and publishes books (to date, 36 titles with Dunecrest Press), hikes and fly-fishes in the High Sierra, and takes walks on the beach with his wife.

With Dunecrest Press he has published six novels (I Want My MoMA—One Year in the Life of Mike Maurison, Private Eye, To Have and To Hold—One Month in the Life of Mike Maurison, Private Eye, Treasure Hunt—One Week in the Life of Mike Maurison, Private Eye, Smoke and Mirrors—One Day in the Life of Mike Maurison, Private Eye, Cycles—Coming of Age in an Ancient Time on a Different World, The One Who Tells the Stories—A Boy, a Girl, One Week, and God), one book of practical theology (The Kingdom of God and the Local Congregation), a collection of short stories set on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, the place he now calls home (Long Beach Short Stories—Possibly Untrue Tales of the Pacific Northwest), and four collections of poetry, Crucifix Askew, Sidekicks (a collaborative work with David Campiche featuring poetry and photography of the Pacific Northwest), Mostly Sonnets, and Laughing Matters. His books are available for purchase on Amazon.com.

His poetry has been featured in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, Fevers of the Mind, Bewildering Stories, The Ravens Perch, Rain, Spirit Fire Review, The New English Review, The Tattler, Foreshadow Magazine, The Road Not Taken, The Ekphrastic Review, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, The Wider Circle, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, the Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse..

His poem “Pneuma” was a Laureate’s Choice in the 2021 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest; his sonnet, “Forever Nine,” was chosen Best Quarterly Poem in the Summer 2020 edition of The Lyric. He was a First Place winner in the 2022 100 Days of Dante poetry contest and was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition. He claims to be an optimist.