JAMES KAELAN
WRITER // INNKEEPER
999 Years
of Peace
Novel (February 2024)
Author
Faith Li wants to ruin a rich man’s life. Not for fun, mind you. But because proving she can do it might save the world. Or at least extend its life another day or two. She’d rather not do anything violent, though. No car bombs or poisoned drinks. Not even (quite) blackmail. But if she could write something that could make some Silicon Valley power broker quit his job and dissolve his company... It probably won’t work. And yet if Turgenev’s short stories convinced Czar Alexander II to free the serfs, it’s worth a fucking try.
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James Kaelan's 999 Years of Peace, in a handmade edition of 132 copies from Cartoon Distortion, is not for sale. But if you ask very discreetly, you might get one stuffed into your backpack on the subway like a Xeroxed sheaf of samizdat.
We're
Getting On
Novel
Author
Alephactory Press, $15
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At a bar in Sacramento, a group of disaffected kids watch Saddam Hussein's trial on TV every night and compete with each other over who loves the tyrannical Middle East strongman most.
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So when Dan, the charismatic-and-perhaps-despotic frontman of a popular local band compels four acolytes to follow him into the desert "to get to the bottom of this whole human condition," they're powerless to resist.
Originally published in 2010, We're Getting On reads now like a harbinger of America's accelerating economic stratification, political extremism, and environmental degradation.
LEONARD
Podcast series
Co-writer/Producer/Editor
In 1977, Native American activist Leonard Peltier was sentenced to consecutive life terms for killing two FBI agents. Then in 2000, a Freedom of Information Act disclosure proved the Feds had framed him. But Leonard's still in prison. This is the story of what happened on the Pine Ridge Reservation half a century ago—and the man who's still behind bars for a crime he didn't commit.
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UPDATE: Leonard is freaking free!!!!
America the
Beautiful
Film/Performance
Writer/Director
William Reynolds was convicted of second-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Anthony Vegas. Video pulled from Reynold's phone was used to support his conviction, but Reynolds’ wife Carly believes the footage tells a more complicated story.
Hailed as a "wake-up call" and an "important comment on the contemporary American experience" by Eye for Film, James Kaelan and Blessing Yen's America the Beautiful walks the line between reality and fiction, film and performance, challenging the audience to literally stand up to tyranny.
