Anthony David Jacques

Anthony David Jacques ( ; born Anthony D Jacques, April 23, 1981) is an American author, musician, gemologist and designer. His fiction ranges from literary to transgressive.
Regarding his recent short story, Tropicalia, in the 2013 collection The Booked. Anthology, the UK based This is Horror podcast had this to say: "Another pitch perfect piece about loss, and the consequences of loss... this guy is really in control of what he's doing." In the same interview, Robb Olson, one of the anthologies editors, said, "We received this one early on and... I said... if we only got five stories and that was one of them, I'd consider it a success."
In addition to his writing career, he has also worked as a coffee roaster, skip tracer, graphic designer, travel agent, session musician, diamond grader, hotel clerk, and gemology instructor. He currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Early Life & Music
Anthony D Jacques was born on April 23, 1981. Aside from a few years in California, he spent most of his formative years in either Saint Louis or Kansas City, Missouri. He took up the guitar in high school, buying an old acoustic from his uncle which had first belonged to his mother when she was 16 years old, and had since changed hands within the family several times.
He had several brief stints as a lead guitarist with local bands in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as early as 1999, as well as Minneapolis, Minnesota from 2001-2008; though none of these projects lasted long or resulted in any significant recordings. He also briefly toured with the Minneapolis-based post-hardcore band, Perennial Ember, during 2003, on bass guitar.
In April 2007, while unable to work due to illness, Anthony began experimenting with electronic music. Recording under the moniker "ireLocus", his June 2007 EP entitled ADJ featured 5 songs, 3 of which were rough mixes that would later appear on his full length album, Borne. The final track on this EP, Chateau d'If, is a rare one-take live recording on which he sings and plays piano. Since most of his music is instrumental and created entirely within the confines of GarageBand and ProTools, this track is highly unusual.
Borne was released independently on October 31, 2007, as a free download on DivShare.com, where it remains available. It features 14 tracks, including a live version of the single, Patina, and a number of collaborative remixes. It's worth noting that the only organic sound on the entire album is a brief vocal sample on "Vacation" and "And You in Your Red Dress". For "Going Away," it took nearly three weeks of programming and tweaking to produce the nuanced sound of an acoustic guitar from GarageBand, but rather than just sit down and play it, he considered the task a challenge. Jacques lists Autechre, Massive Attack and among his electronic musical influences.
His third album is tentatively titled "Cadaeic." The album itself was planned as a challenge in constrained writing for music; Cadaeic being a reference to the irrational number Pi. In literary works, such as the Cadaeic Cadenza, the length of each word corresponds to each digit of Pi. American artist Lou Zeldis, another influence on Jacques' work, was also known to incorporate Pi into some of his later textile pieces.
For Cadaeic, the digits of Pi were employed to dictate elements like poly-rhythm layering or melodic development, with notes each being given a numerical value based on their position on the scale, then arranged with Pi in mind. Cadaeic was slated for release in the fall of 2008, but was put on hold due to increased interest in writing as well as a cross country relocation to California. It is currently recorded, but has yet to be mixed or mastered.
He has also produced many remixes over the years, most notably Nine Inch Nails' "God Given" and "Only", which remain available at the Nine Inch Nails online remix community and have been featured on numerous remix podcasts.
Education
*Associate of Arts, Graphic Design (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)
**Minor: Music composition
*Bachelor of Arts, Music Theory (North Central University)
**Minor: Music performance, Guitar
*Graduate Gemologist (Gemological Institute of America)
**Accredited Jewelry Professional
**Graduate Diamonds
**Graduate Colored Stones
**Graduate Pearls
Career
Early Writing
In 2007, he began writing under what has now become his nom de plume of Anthony David Jacques. Upon moving to San Diego, California in late 2008, due to California's strict ID laws, he discovered that his parents had filled out his birth certificate and social security card wrong and that legally, he only has claim to the middle initial D.
He started writing his first novel, Subliminal Messiah, as a part of National Novel Writing Month(aka, NaNoWriMo) in November 2007. The initial manuscript was over 80,000 words and required heavy editing and revision before reaching its final word count of just over 50,000. During those years he joined a number of online writing communities and took several workshops with writers such as Craig Clevenger and Chuck Palahniuk, among others, in order to hone his writing and editing skills.
In 2010, he undertook a challenge to write one short story a week for a year. He states, "Ray Bradbury once said, 'You can’t write 52 bad stories in a row.' Or maybe he didn't, but this idea has been attributed to him more than anyone else. Whoever said it, I decided to give it a shot back in 2010." The stories have remained archived and available on his website ever since.
Subliminal Messiah was accepted by Perfect Edge Books in 2012 and released February 28, 2014.
Gemology
He attended the Gemological Institute of America in 2008 and began working in their Carlsbad, California lab as a diamond grader that same year, eventually earning the rank of Staff Gemologist.
In late 2012, he left GIA to partner with Diamonds International in Saint Lucia. Once there, he helped design and implement courses for diamonds and colored stones for the newly established Diamonds International University.
Professional Writing
*Copywriter: "Installation Solutions" website (2014) (forthcoming)
*Academic Writing:
**Colored Stones Course, Diamonds International University Saint Lucia (2012-2013)
***Copywriter: Ammolite, Amber, Berly (Emerald), Chalcedony, Cubic Zirconia, Diopside, Quartz
***Consultant/Editor: Corundum (Ruby, Sapphire, Fancy Sapphire), Feldspar Group, Garnet group, Hematite, Iolite, Ivory, Jade, Opal, Lapis, Malachite, Pearls, Peridot, Spinel, Tanzanite, Topaz, Tourmaline & Turquoise.
**Diamonds Course, Diamonds International University Saint Lucia (2012-2013)
***Consultant/Editor: Diamonds, Diamond Grading, The Four C's (Cut, Clarity, Color, Carat Weight) Diamonds International University Saint Lucia (2012-2013)
*Staff Writer/Editor: ManArchyMag.com (2012-2013)
*Contributor: AnAmericanAtheist.org (2011-2012)
*Founder, Curator, TheCleanSlateProject.com (2009-2010)
*Contributor: Theophiliacs.com (2009)
*Copywriter, Design Consultant: "Riverside Travel" website (2006-2008)
Readings
*Subliminal Messiah Release & Perfect Edge Reading (22 March 2014(tentative))
*Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology (20 July 2012)
Interviews & Podcasts
*Booked. Podcast episode 26: Anthony David Jacques: Warmed and Bound Sessions (2011)
*This is Horror Podcast episode 013: The Booked. Anthology Review and Interview with Robb Olson and Livius Nedin (2014)
Misc.
Classic Cars
While living in San Diego, CA, Anthony bought his first classic car, a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere II. He slowly restored it while using it as a daily driver. During the summer, he and his family would attend Cruising Grand in Escondido every Friday evening, as well as other various shows, cruises and swap meets around Southern California.
He also bought his childhood dream car, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. The vehicle was in rough condition mechanically, but the body and frame were rust free and all the glass was original. Unfortunately, once running, the car proved to be much less enjoyable to drive and much more expensive to source parts for.
In the fall of 2012 he sold his cars in order to relocate to Saint Lucia, West Indies.
Neckties
In late 2013, Anthony began experimenting with different traditional necktie knots and by 2014, he began to develop knots of his own, consisting of either a variation on an existing knot or an entirely novel approach. Below are some of his knots:
*Adelaide knot
*Corkscrew knot
*Devil Makes Three knot (aka the Noose)
*Excalibur knot
*The Jacques Knot
*Templar knot

Bibliography
Fiction
* Subliminal Messiah (2014) Paperback, ISBN 1780994834
Short Fiction
*Tropicalia (2013) Print
*La Place Caranage (2013) Digital
*Negative #6 (2011) Print
*The Liberation of Edward Kellor (2011) Print
*Latakia (2010) Digital
*The Special (2010) Digital
*Around Her Neck Like A Scarf (2010) Digital
*The Collector (2008) Digital
*The Eternal Flame (2008) Digital
*John Brown's Brother (2008) Digital
Self-Published Short Fiction
*2010 Weekly Short Story Project
**52 short stories archived at AnthonyDavidJacques.com
Selected Non-Fiction and Essays
*Manarchy Magazine (These articles have been archived at AnthonyDavidJacques.com since Manarchy Magazine went under in late 2013)
**Meditations in a Tiki Bar: Lessons Learned in Paradise (2013)
**How to Sell Everything You Own and Move to the Caribbean (2012)
**Trending Now: Tequila and Cigar Pairings (2012)
**Four Hours With a Kindle Convinced Me To Buy An iPad (2012)
**The Whiskey Review: Maker’s 46 is Like Fight Club in a Bottle (2012)
**The Whiskey Review: Macallan 12 Year (2012)
**The New Beck Album You Can’t Hear (2012)
**The Whiskey Review: Redbreast 12 Year vs 15 Year (2012)
**The Whiskey Review: Johnnie Walker Black vs The Glenlivet (2012)
**The Whiskey Review: Jack Daniels Old No 7 (2012)
**Stop Drinking and Start Tasting (2012)
*An American Atheist
**Why I Am Not A Christian (2012)
**Suffer the Little Children (2012)
**In Christopher Hitchens' Wake: Reflections on Cancer and Losing My Religion (2012)
**Deprogramming Series (2011)
***An Introduction
***They Will Only Make You Feel Ugly
***I Might Be Wrong
***Doomsday
***Doomsday Part II
*Theophiliacs
**Epilogue (2009)
**Cognitive Dissonance (aka A New Direction) (2009)
**Legal Copy (2009)
**Five Books That Were "There" For Me:
***Fight Club, Calvin and Hobbes, Inferno, House of Leaves, Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance (2009)
**The Problem with Healing Series(2009)
***Part I
***Part II
***Part III
**Prop 8 Ruling Today: An Interesting Perspective (2009)
**The Line Between Faith and Recklessness (2009)
**Martin Luther and the Founding of the Nazi Party (aka I Couldn't Resist) (2009)

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