 In the early 1990s she worked as a horse wrangler at the Home Ranch in Clark, Colorado where she also played fiddle in the ranch's cowboy band.James also worked occasionally as a packer and horse wrangler in the West Elk and La Garita Wilderness in Colorado in the mid-1990s, punctuated by brief stints in publishing in New York City.James is an alumnus of the Meadowmount School of Music, the New York Youth Symphony, the Columbia University Chamber Music Program, the New York String Orchestra Seminar with Alexander Schneider and the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France.