Jim has spent his entire life in book publishing, as an editor, marketing director, publisher, literary agent, book packager and writer. For the past six years he was the publications director for the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), a non-profit organization of more than 7,000 members. He was responsible for the content of all the books and journals published by the organization.

He is the author or co-author of more than two dozen books, on subjects ranging from croquet and baseball to humor and writing. In 2007 Jim's first children's book, Hey Batta Batta Swing, written with Sally Cook and illustrated by Ross MacDonald, was published. This was recently given the 2007 Parents' Choice Silver Honor Award.

Jim is one of the founding editors of the Pushcart Prize Award, recognizing the best writing in small press publications each year, and is on the board of directors of the Pushcart Foundation. He has been a judge for the Casey Award, given to the best baseball book published the previous year. He is currently the writing judge for the Jentel Foundation, an artists and writers colony in Banner, Wyoming.

Jim is married and he and his wife Barbara split their time between Lakeville and Greenwich Village. Their 21-year-old daughter Meg is a senior in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Jim has three grown children, Kevin, Tim, and Anne, all by an earlier marriage, and four grand children.