An award-winning author, James has won the Shelia A. Egoff B.C. Children’s Literature Award three times for Flood, Wish Me Luck and The Grave. In addition, Wish Me Luck was nominated for a Canadian Governor General’s Award and The Grave and Torn Away were selected as American Library Association (ALA) Best Books for Young Adults.
My growing up was done in Liverpool, England, and in Ireland, where my parents came from, my father from Achill Island, County Mayo, and my mother from Ennis, County Clare.
I was a policeman in Live
rpool for a couple of years but decided to leave England for Vancouver, British Columbia. After five years I became a Canadian citizen. For twelve years I worked as a fingerprint specialist with the Vancouver Police but got fed up staring at fingerprints and decided I would make a great teacher. So I got a wonderful job working with young people, teaching English in a Burnaby high school.
I started writing children’s stories with friend and teaching colleague Bruce McBay. I have four grown-up children and four grandchildren.
James Heneghan 
Mr. Heneghan was my English 9 teacher and a lifelong inspiration to me. I, too, became an English teacher and so we ran into one another from time to time. He was unfailingly kind and generous.
I am saddened by his passing but some part of him lives on in his students and readers.
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