James Pate is a fiction writer and poet. He was born in Memphis, lived many years in Chicago, and now lives in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. He is the author of THE FASSBINDER DIARIES (Civil Coping Mechanisms), FLOWERS AMONG THE CARRION (Action Books), and the forthcoming crime novel SPEED OF LIFE (280 Steps). He has had work published in Black Warrior Review, Blue Mesa Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, New Delta Review, Cream City Review, Plots with Guns, storySouth, La Petite Zine, Pembroke Magazine, and Superstition Review, among other places.