_RION HALL PUBLISHING______________________
Though he was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1947, James E. Duffey has spent most of his life in Youngstown, Ohio. A graduate of Youngstown State University, he majored in English, and history, and has earned both a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Education, and a Master's Degree in American history. It was in graduate school that Jim got interested in writing professionally, where he was awarded the Madeline Blum Award for the most outstanding original research project of the year, a history of the Irish in Youngstown, 1890-1930.
Jim has taught for over thirty years at both the high school and college levels, and currently serves as adjunct professor of history at Kent State University's Stark County branch campus in Canton, Ohio. He resides in Medina, Ohio.
Two new books are in the works, both sequels to Victim of Honor. One is based on the life of Bennet Graham Burleigh, who served with the Confederates both along the Chesapeake Bay and in Canada during the Civil War. Captured twice, he escaped prison and returned to Canada, and then home to the United Kingdom. Burleigh later became a war correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph, risking his life many times while covering the Boer Wars in Africa, the war in Madagascar, and the Russo-Japanese War, and became a media celebrity in the process.
The second book is about the
life of Martha O'Bryan, John Beall's fiance'. After Beall's death Martha never
married. She returned to Nashville where she and her sister Fannie resumed their teaching careers and later
Martha worked to feed and clothe the poor. Nashville honored her many years of service by naming the community center The Martha O'Bryan Center.