me: sacred, soulful, funny, serene & peaceful sistah. jazzy, creative spirit. published author and professional journalist--loving this life, my unlimited power & potential, and living in the moment. Take care, Jamie. :)
i'm originally from oakland, california (the Bay Area--smile), but currently reside on the east coast, where i laugh, love, write, star in film/voice-overs, network, and chill.
more about me:Jamie is president and CEO of J.D. Publishing Group. Originally from Oakland, California, she freelances for Heart & Soul magazine, in addition to a number of other magazines and newspapers. She graduated magna cum laude from San Francisco State University, where she studied Theater Arts and Black Studies. She received both her Masters and Ph.D. (with Distinction) in African American and Caribbean Literature from Howard University.
She starred in several plays throughout California as a respected and highly praised leading actress. She won first place in the state of California for her dramatic interpretation of August Wilson's play, "Fences," and has toured with The San Francisco Mime Troupe and The African American Shakespeare Company. Jamie has also hosted a late-night talk show in the District of Columbia on WHBC 830 AM. It was an inspirational talk show about relationships and matters of the soul.
Jamie is a member of The National Association of Black Journalists, Modern Language Association, and The Golden Key National Honor Society. Her first book, 101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love Themselves: A Gift for Women of All Ages (J.D. Publishing Group 2002), received stunning reviews from Black Issues Book Review, Upscale, and Heart & Soul magazine.
Available at Amazon.com
In Fall 2001, Jamie received a distinguished scholarship award from poet Sonia Sanchez on behalf of The Elizabeth Howard and Thorton H. Trust Fund. That same year, poet Ethelbert Miller recommended Jamie for a Lannan Poetry Fellowship at The Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Featured on a CNN panel in 2004 (along with Ruby Dee, the late Ossie Davis, David Driskell, and Esther Cooper Jackson), she has toured and also served on panels with Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, and Kalamu ya Salaam. Her feature stories have graced the covers of The New York Amsterdam News, The San Francisco Bayview, The Washington Informer, The Afro-American, The Tennessee Tribune, and The San Francisco Bayview. She has also been featured in The San Francisco Examiner, Women in the Moon, The Oakland Tribune, Mosaic, Rhapsody, The African American Literature Book Club Online, The New Poet's Revolutionary Magazine, BMa: The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review, The Quarterly Black Review, and Sable Literary magazine, which is published in London.Praised for her “superior skill in research,â€? she was selected (out of thirty young scholars across the United States) by Camille O. Cosby and Renee Poussaint to join the first class of students in The National Visionary Heritage Fellowship Program. The program taught her how to perform videotaped documentaries of historic "visionary" elders over the age of 70. Jamie's chosen "visionary" elder was Esther Cooper Jackson," co-founder of Freedomways magazine in 1961 with W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois. Freedomways magazine chronicled the Civil Rights-Black Arts Movement and featured several well-known Black writers, poets, and artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Paul Robeson, Angela Davis, Mari Evans, and Ntozake Shangé.
Jamie's written work produced with The National Visionary Leadership Project is now archived at The Smithsonian and featured in a book called "A Wealth of Wisdom: Legendary African American Elders Speak" (Atria Books 2004), which is edited by Camille Cosby and Renee Poussaint, respectfully.Jamie essays and poetry are published in Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social & Political Black Literature & Art (Third World Press 2002), edited by Tony Medina and Samiya Bashir; It Doesn’t Take a Genius: Five Truths to Inspire Success in Every Student (McGraw-Hill 2005), edited by Tommie Lindsey; I Woke Up and Put My Crown On: The Project of 76 Voices (Publish America 2005), edited by Rochelle Hart; and Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire Publishing 2006), edited by DuEwa Frazier.Jamie's poems from her second book, Signifyin’ Me: New and Selected Poems (J.D. Publishing Group 2005) will be published two forthcoming anthologies: Gumbo for the Soul: The Recipe for Literacy in the African American Community and Are All the Women Still White?: Globalizing Women’s Studies. Jamie has a wise "Old Soul." She is deeply spiritual, very funny, has a "zest" for life, and an exciting, vibrant personality. Her next book, "Sonia On My Mind: A Tribute Honoring Sonia Sanchez's Life of Leadership, Activism, and Service," on her dear friend and mentor, Sonia Sanchez, has been praised by Amiri Baraka and Ethelbert Miller. Both poets deem this long-awaited, forthcoming book by Jamie to be “a landmark collection.�
Check out Jamie's
interview with Sonia Sanchez in the June/July 2006 issue of Heart & Soul
magazine.
BOOKS BY JAMIE:
"101 Ways is like talking to your sister
when she's got all the right answers."--
Heart & Soul magazine
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Title: "101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love Themselves: A Gift for Women of All Ages"
Book Summary:
In 101 Ways Black Women Can Learn to Love Themselves , Dr. Jamie teaches women the beauty of learning how to love themselves unconditionally. Her book discusses the power of sisterhood and the healing power of sharing our own stories. It also teaches women how to "let go," step out on faith to pursue new career goals, and to heal from past relationships. Jamie's book reminds women that they are queens, and, above all, human beings who need to first heal and learn how to love themselves before they can ever love others, attempt to liberate, or give back to the nation. Her deeply touching and emotionally charged book includes recommended reading, a list of other women's organizations and websites, and a guide to historically Black colleges and universities.
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“If those of us who made the revolutions of the 60s and 70s ever began to worry about what happened to our work, all we’d need to do is read these poems by Jamie Walker. Here are the lessons and the legacies craftily, cunningly refurbished from a warm and resplendent soul not afraid to strut her stuff.�— Akasha Gloria Hull
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Title: "Signifyin' Me: New and Selected Poems"
Book Summary:
In Signifyin̢۪ Me: New and Selected Poems, Jamie, a noted journalist and poet, celebrates the Black women's literary tradition, a tradition comprised of what feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins calls "a legacy of struggle" and "culture of resistance." Jamie tackles issues of internalized racism and sexism. Her work not only explores the inextricable link between gender, race, and class, but also women's politics and spirituality. Signifyin' Me is a deeply empowering book that is both a testimony to the spirit and passion of the soul.
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