James earned his master's degree at Columbia University in New York and has written about San Diego's cultural communities for more than two decades. His awards include a national writing prize from the Society for Features Journalism and 30-plus local and regional journalism honors. He was part of a San Diego Union-Tribune staff whose cultural coverage was named best in the state in 2019 and 2020. James also has seven years' experience as a newspaper copy editor, plus skills in SEO, AI, video editing, digital marketing content creation/management and social media.