Bearlodge Writers

Jamie Lee

Get To Know Jamie

My website: Jamie Lee Online

Quote:

"Pass the chocolate."

Jamie Lee Bio

Jamie Lee grew up in the land of 10,000 lakes but has lived in western South Dakota for almost thirty years.  She has written over 70 documentaries for public radio including an award winning native music series entitled Oyate Ta Olowan—The Songs of the People.  She has had numerous short stories and articles published, and is the author of Feeling Good About Feeling Bad, and Re-Visioning Adolescence and the Rite of Passage.  Jamie has an M.A. in Human Development and is a full time faculty member at Oglala Lakota College. 

Excerpt of Writing

On Writing

I blame everything on my writing, or more specifically, on the part of me compelled to translate all the world offers onto a blank page. And I prefer the blank page. I like the rhythmic gauge of lines of ink; the repressed good girl, tidy slant and even spacing of self-consciousness, the tremors occurring when a thought latches onto the neural network like a drug, or the later unreadable scrawl as it loses the polished slant, the smooth curve, and becomes something dark and alive, ink wet like a fingertip or like a mouth. I’m a drunk, a streetwalker, a bank robber, in those moments, willing to risk all to take that next dangerous step.

I blame writing for the Mercedes I don’t drive, the mountain retreat I don’t own, and the 401 K I don’t have to see me to retirement or my children through college. Writing has obliterated the life I could have had—the long beach vacations, the leisure time, the personal trainer, and gardener, the housekeeper there to wash my dirty windows.

Instead, I prefer to stay near the substance of my life, to wash and fold and plant and pick and find the brilliant world outside a dusty pane of glass myself and to write about it. It has become a living thing, this writing, a beast, being, creature, a dragon of great strength knocking me out of bed every morning and then making tender love to me each night when I am alone and the house is silent.

I’m talented, observant, educated—an astute therapist. I could be sitting ten hours a day like Jennifer in the Sopranos wearing silk and tailored wool, high heeled pumps, a pinched and frozen expression on my face as I earn my $200,000 a year listening to sob stories.

I want to be normal. I want to flop into a chair and watch fourteen hours of television ads until numbness kills my soul—and the urge to write.

Except for one, inescapable, inextricable thing. I like it. I like the crooked finger of language guiding me into dark caverns and high vistas, dragging me to a mountaintop and then flinging me over the edge without a shred of mercy. Without its nut-cracking, crazy-making, soul-busting energy—I could not live.

And I, a creature of self-preservation beyond all else, want to live.

Publication Credits

Books:

Feeling Good About Feeling Bad, Golden Egg Publishing, 1987
Re-Visioning Adolescence and the Rite of Passage, Many Kites Press, 2004
Washaka—The Bear Dreamer, Many Kites Press, 2006
Albert’s Manuscript, a novel, Many Kites Press, 2006
Silver, Many Kites Press, 2007

Periodicals and Anthologies:

In the Shadow of the Bear Lodge: Writings from the Black Hills, Patricia Frolander, editor; Many Kites Press, 2006
Winds of Change Magazine, 1990, 1991
South Dakota Review, 1991
Bellowing Ark Magazine, 1993
Byline Magazine, 2004
South Dakota Magazine, 2004
Heartlands Magazine, 2005
Toastmaster Magazine
ober Times
Compendium Magazine
Inside the Black Hills
Tucson Business Journal
Our Children Magazine, Grand Rapids, Michigan, monthly column, 1992
The Reporter, Rapid City, South Dakota
Rapid City Journal, Rapid City, South Dakota

National Radio Credits

*The Black Hills: A Lakota Vision produced for KILI Radio, 1991
*A Song for Wounded Knee produced for Public Radio, International (PRI), 1993
Timebomb: AIDS in Indian Country produced for KILI FM, 1993
*Does Mother Earth Have AIDS? produced for PRI, 1993
*The Buddy Red Bow Story produced for PRI, 1994
**Oyate Ta Olowan (Songs of the People), a 52-part Native music series, 1996-2000
*The Search For Indian produced for PRI, 1995
You Got To Have Heart produced for PRI, 1996
In His Name: The Carving of Crazy Horse Mountain produced for PRI, 1996
(Above are all documentary programs. Those marked with asterisks were awarded Golden Reel Awards by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.)

Awards and Recognition:

Paul Robeson/Funding Exchange: grant
Corporation for Public Broadcasting: two grants
Seventh Generation Fund: multiple small grants for documentary projects on native issues.
National Endowment for the Arts: two grants