Abandoned in Hope, Arkansas and suckled on the teat of a she-wolf to the tender age of twenty-six, Jim Nelson has turned misfortune into triumph by recounting his tale to mesmerized audiences the world 'round on his inspiring Abandon Hope All Ye Who Will Listen speaking tour. His 1998 debut heavy metal album Ümläüt was certified triple platinum and he took home the Grammy for Best Album in a Genre That Owes Everything to Wagner and Knows Nothing Of His Work. Still smoldering with this success, he led a pioneering team of researchers toward a cure for the plague of modern man, athlete's foot. Sinister forces in the shadowy foot spray industry had him imprisoned on trumped-up jaywalking charges. He walked free a year later, but the feet he walked with were itchy, itchy, itchy.

In his spare time he writes fiction. His work has been published in The Loin's Mouth, Switchback, Instant City, SmokeLong Quarterly, Watchword, Transfer, Red Wheelbarrow and other fine literary venues. He's a prior Fiction Editor for Transfer and former Web Director for Parthenon West Review. Awards include first prize in the Clark College Fiction Contest and a Webby nomination for his now-abandoned webzine Ad Nauseam. Today he resides in San Francisco. He fell off a cable car and lived to tell about it.