As a teenager, James D. Maxon struggled to find his identity. His parents had divorced when he was just three-years-old and he was raised in a strictly female household: his mother, grandmother, sister and aunt. As he was growing up, he never had a male role model he could count on.

“The men my mother dated had issues. One of the longer—off and on—relationships was with an alcoholic who spent a fair amount of time in jail,” he said. “As a result, my understanding of the male identity has been a struggle.”

As if that weren’t challenging enough, he also lived with family members diagnosed with medical conditions such as mental illness and depression. Some of them even went so far as to make attempts on their life. He, himself, struggled in school due to a learning disability.

Despite it all, or perhaps because of his struggles, James has made it his mission to understand the truths in life and help those struggling with similar questions. “From the time I was very young, writing has been a way for me to express what’s going on inside me,” he said. “I have written many poems, songs, and one-paragraph thoughts, as well as a few short and longer stories.”

The Cat That Made Nothing Something Again is a story he started writing in 1999, shortly after moving away from home, and only recently finished. “I started writing this again because my mother kept asking about the story, and so I wanted to finish it,” he said. “A lot of the messages in it were meant to be an encouragement for her.”

Among the messages delivered in the book: if you know something is wrong, you must do what you can to make it right; don’t worry about that which you cannot change; and faith is an important tool for getting through difficult times. Maxon hopes his book will help deliver these encouraging lessons to his young readers.

According to William Rush, Ph.D., L.P., “A child is like a blank computer hard drive. Life teaches him or her an operating system. The rules for how the world works. What are men like? What are women like? And most importantly, who am I and how do I fit into this world? Am I adequate? Am I loved? Am I good enough?”

“I think it’s important for kids to learn what it means to be someone of worth,” Maxon said. “And it is my desire to reach kids who are struggling like I did by providing them with messages of faith, hope and insight before the negative ones get engraved into their hearts and minds.”

The Cat That Made Nothing Something Again was published in Dec. 2008, and is available for purchase on Amazon.com with the option to obtain it in Kindle format. Maxon’s current work in progress is A Wizard’s Tale, a story about a 15-year-old boy who is involuntarily forced to walk in his father’s footsteps, after his death, and finds himself fighting against a powerful opposing force. He hopes to have the story ready for publication by the end of 2010.

To schedule an interview with James Maxon, contact Rachel M. Anderson at 952-240-2513 or via e-mail: randerson72@earthlink.net