Biographical Notes
Jay Caselberg was born in a country town in Australia
and then traveled extensively while growing up. His first expedition was
to Istanbul
in 1969, where he lived for two years, and then later, in 1973 to Cambridge
for a year.
Starting a BSc in Biochemistry in Sydney,
he changed to a BSc Psych, then
transferred to the University
of Wollongong
to do a BA Psych. There he discovered History and Philosophy of Science,
which was to become his major and eventually, his Honours
Degree. Taking up a Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue his Doctorate, he
transferred to the University
of New South Wales
in Sydney,
claiming from the start that his degree was simply practice to write
large, cogent volumes of material. A short time before handing in his
dissertation, he realized that academia wasn't going to fulfill his ambitions
and he stepped out into the workforce, joining a couple of IT companies in
succession, until he found one that stuck. Nine months later, he
transferred for work to London.
From that time on, he traveled extensively, throughout Europe
and Africa.
Towards the end of that time, already a champion historical wargamer,
he retired from competition and decided to focus on his love of writing.
In 1996, he started writing with a passion. For nearly the next two years, he
wrote full time and garnered his first few publications writing as James A.
Hartley. In 1998, he rejoined the workforce.
His next job involved even more travel, having initial
responsibility for 54 countries, dealing with internal management systems for a
major accounting firm. This role eventually grew to encompass a number of
different global projects. During the constant travel, he wrote, and
continued to write. In mid 2002, the global firm for which he worked
ceased to exist.
Since then, he has continued to write and publish, both as
Jay Caselberg and James A. Hartley. He currently still
works in the consulting industry on international projects. He
writes across many genres, both at short story and novel length, crossing the
boundaries of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, and the Literary, generally
with a dark edge. Although his work may be sometimes characterised
as "weird," it may never be known as "New Weird."
Return