James Verran

James Verran has lived in Port Noarlunga since 1969 with his wife Betty and their three offspring. They now have a clutch of three adult grand-daughters and the beginnings of a gang of great grandchildren. Before retirement in 2008, South Australian born James worked as a lapidary technician for an internationally renowned, Swiss Gem and jewelry manufacturer, and various gem dealers, retail jewelers and opal miners.

Upon retiring from the gem trade, he worked for a few years at a local fruit and nut tree nursery where he mostly kept the young trees alive by constant supervision of their watering needs as well as odd grafting and propagation duties. However, since retiring he has wondered how he ever found time to work for a living.

His writing career has been less than illustrious, apart from his 1989 success with Writers of the Future, where he was instructed by the late Algis Budrys and met his valued friend Scot Noel at the awards ceremony in Las Vegas in 1990. After a handful of minor places in competitions the writing was on the wall.

More recently he has concentrated on rounding out his “Bucket List” with sundry activities such as learning to play Chromatic Harmonica of which he owns and plays a 12 hole, two 14 hole and a 16 hole monster— not all that successfully with his industrial deafness. It hasn’t been easy in South Australia where these instruments are almost unheard of so his only tutorage has come from a collection of books written by several top players from overseas. Along the way he has developed a method of transposing and marking up the music in his own style of tablature.

When not reading dreadful, cheap electronic books he takes his frustration out on his private archery target as well as at a nearby local outdoor range. Otherwise gradual memory loss and deteriorating hearing now keep him out of mischief in his dotage.