EMPLOYMENT
James Cummins Bookseller, New York City. Chief operating officer (2005 to present). Hired as associate (July 2000 to 2005).
Antiquarian bookseller: buying, cataloguing, and selling printed books, autograph and manuscript material;
making independent decisions on acquisitions and sales; valuing, cataloguing, and placing author or publication archives;
appraisals of single items, collections, and archives for donation or insurance purposes; representing the firm at
international antiquarian book fairs and other events. Guest speaker at rare book/librarianship classes offered by Indiana
University (Lilly Library), Pratt Institute, and New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies.
Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) compliant through 11 January 2026.

Temporary Culture, Upper Montclair, N.J. (2000 to present).
Proprietor. Independent publisher of fiction, artist books, and original monographs relating to the literature of the fantastic.

Freelance Copy Editor & Proofreader (Nov. 1999 to Jan. 2003).
Projects included Spafinder magazine and « www.spafinder.com »; and Scifiction, weekly selection of science fiction
stories edited by Ellen Datlow for « scifi.com ».

AB Bookman’s Weekly, Garfield, New Jersey. (Nov. 1996 to Oct. 1999).
Hired as staff writer; promoted to Managing Editor in May 1998; position terminated when magazine ceased publication.
Editorial production of weekly trade magazine for the antiquarian book world; researching and writing original
bylined articles, hundreds of unsigned book reviews, news items; semi-annual index. Represented the magazine at
antiquarian book fairs and other conventions and trade shows.
Attended the Out-of-Print and Antiquarian Book Market Seminar (now CABS), Colorado Springs, summer 1997.

Teacher’s & Writers Collaborative, New York City (1988-1990)
Assistant Director, Writer in Residence program at PS75 Manhattan, teaching creative writing to grades 3-8;
also taught in Columbia University School of General Studies Summer Program for High School Students, 1988 & 1989.

Freelance Database Design (1987-1990)
Designed and maintained confidential record-keeping database for N.Y.C. information management consulting firm

Freelance Translator (1986-1997)
Translation of legal and technical documents from Arabic, French, and German, for International Arbitration Report
and other clients; interpreter for Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode and delegation from Douala, Cameroun, in 1986.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
(click here for detailed list of publications)

•   Another green world (short story collection). First edition, 2003 ; new edition, much expanded, forthcoming from Zagava Books in 2025.
•  A Conversation larger than the Universe. Readings in Science Fiction and the Fantastic 1762-2017.
  With a foreword by John Crowley. The Grolier Club, [25 January] 2018.
•  A Melville Census. John Marr & Timoleon. With a note by Henry Wessells. In press, forthcoming from Temporary Culture, 2025.
•   The Private Life of Books. Poems by Henry Wessells. Photographs by Paul Schütze. First edition, 2014 ; new edition, 2020.
•   "Another green world" (fiction) in Nature 15 June 2000.
•   Poetry, fiction, essays, and reviews in Exquisite Corpse, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Wormwood, The Book Collector, and other publications, 1989 to present.
•   AB Bookman’s Weekly: two dozen feature articles on literary, antiquarian, & historical topics, 1997-1999.
•  Contributor to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, eds. John Clute, D. Langford, G. Sleight, P. Nicholls;
  and to the The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, eds. John Clute and John Grant (St. Martin's Press, 1997).
•   Publisher, the Avram Davidson website « http://www.avramdavidson.org, since 1995.
•   "From This Swamp" (fiction), in The Starry Wisdom, ed. D.M. Mitchell (Creation Books, 1994).

EDUCATION

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City. Writing Division, School of the Arts. Master of Fine Arts, 1990.

THE NAROPA INSTITUTE, Boulder, Colorado. Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Summer program, 1987.

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN CAIRO, Egypt. C.A.S.A. fellowship, Center for Arabic Study, 1983-1984.
One-year program in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, literature, medieval palaeography, and contemporary history.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, New Jersey. Bachelor of Arts, 1983. Graduated magna cum laude,
Department of Near Eastern Studies.
Departmental thesis: translation and annotation of 17th century Arabic manuscript, "Notes for a Ruling on Tobacco,"
by Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti, with a short history of tobacco in the Islamic world.

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, School of Arabic. U.S. Dept. of Education Resource Fellowship, Summer program, 1982.

THE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL, Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Class of 1978.

LYCÉE INTERNATIONAL, St. Germain-en-Laye, France. 1974-1976.

MEMBERSHIPS
Association Internationale de Bibliophilie (A.I.B.); Grolier Club, New York City; Associate Member, A.B.A.A.;
Certified Member, Appraisers Association of America.