James Smiley Wightman is an advertising agency executive and copywriter whose fascination with serial killers led him to leave the business and spend five years researching and writing The Holy Kiss, his first novel.

A native of Buffalo where he attended Amherst Central High School, he was graduated from Kent State University with a major in Journalism. He was a member of the Playwrights workshop in Buffalo and completed a year’s studies in screenwriting at the New School in Manhattan. His screenplay on the painter Jackson Pollock was short listed in the Academy Awards Nicholl’s screenplay competition (top 15 from among 4,000 submissions). The same screenplay was a finalist in the Worldfest screenplay competition. A production house optioned it, but the project died with Ed Harris' Pollock. Major magazines are considering several short stories.

He is a former U. S. Marine and counts Triathlons and Judo among past activities. He splits time at residences in the New York City area and St. Petersburg, Florida, with his wife, artist Babs Reingold. He is now at work on the sequel to The Holy Kiss.