James McCommons is a professor emeritus at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan where he taught journalism and nature writing for 20 years.

He is the author of the narrative, non-fiction book: Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail named by The Library Journal as a best nonfiction book of 2009. In 2019, the University of New Mexico Press published Camera Hunter, a biography of George Shiras III, an early 20th century conservationist and pioneer of wildlife photography. His third book, The Feather Wars and Great Crusade to Save America’s Birds was released March 2026 by St. Martin’s Press.

He is a veteran journalist, specializing in ecology, environmental and travel topics. He has written hundreds of general interest magazine articles contributing to Better Homes and Gardens, Audubon, Wildlife Conservation, Organic Gardening, Backpacker, The Oregonian, St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times.

He attended the Art Institute of Boston majoring in photography and later earned a B.A. in English from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.A. in magazine journalism from Syracuse University and an M.S. in environmental science from the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF).  He taught as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University and Muhlenberg College and DeSales University in Allentown, Pa.

In 1997, he joined Rodale Press in Emmaus, Pa. as a senior health writer and member of a writing team that produced several books for the Prevention and Men's Health brands. He was a senior editor at Organic Gardening magazine until he left to pursue a fulltime teaching career in 2001.

He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and represented by Sorche Fairbank https://fairbankliterary.com/