Artist Statement

My work uncovers silenced histories, resists dominant culture, and questions all systems of authority. My nonfiction, essays, flash fiction, and screenplays attract deep thinkers and those who push against the status quo: anarchists, feminists, and rebels of all kinds. I explore underground worlds through their politics, authenticity and human rawness, leaving readers with a visceral response that impels them toward self-reflection and offers the hope that discomfort can be transformed into deeper understanding and solidarity. 

Bio

Jaime Dunkle (she/they) crafts poetic stories across multiple mediums. She mixes the profound and profane with an altruism that stems from her tenure as an award-winning journalist. Her candid columns, new-journalism essays, political autotheory, flash fiction, and screenplays foreground society’s underbelly and often center on the paradox of absurdity and drama. When left to her own devices, Jaime’s fragmented bursts form story constellations of writing, collage, multimedia, graphics, and visual art.

Jaime also hosts the Art of Peace podcast about the martial art of Aikido. And they author the blogs Lotus Budo: Notes on the Intersection of Buddhism and Aikido and Witness & Resist: Writing for Autonomy.

Accomplishments

In 2026, Jaime has miraculously stayed active performing, writing, and showcasing art during her final year in graduate school (she graduated in May). Her photography was included in the New Orleans Photo Alliance Push Pin show. The Hoolet’s Nook published Jaime’s poem “Winter Woe” on her 45th birthday. And two of her photos are currently showing at Scale for the Alluvium group show.

In 2025, Jaime’s dark ambient music project, Love Above Will, that invokes the occult through sound, debuted on Phil Western’s Afterflash: A Remixed Tribute. She also worked on the album’s layout and design, and she edited the insert story to form a collective eulogy. Her poem “The Changeling” was published in the New Orleans based LMNL Arts zine. She was a semifinalist for the Patty Friedmann Writing Contest in Creative Nonfiction for her essay “My Brother’s Escape.”And Jaime’s collages appeared in the On Display group show of outsiders at the Carroll Gallery in New Orleans.

Jaime co-wrote, with Tim “Rim” Hill, the music video for “Let the Flowers Grow” by Peter Murphy (Bauhaus) and Boy George (Culture Club) in 2024. Jaime won Best Presentation from the Tulane University School of Liberal Arts for her work entitled Silenced Resisters: Recovering 20th-Century Waves of Beatnik Women at the 2024 Tulane Research, Innovation, and Creativity Summit. Jaime was a proofreader for The Timberline Review in 2022. Their comedic screenplay, Shuttlecock, won the finalist round in the Willamette Writers FilmLab 2021 contest. Jaime’s collection of flash fiction, Stripped, reached the semifinalist round for the 2019 Open Reading Period in Fiction at YesYes Books. Her short story “Pain Flowers” was published on the CLASH Media website in 2017.

Performances

Jaime has performed raw memoir, tragicomedic tales, and/or poetry at Show & Tell Gallery, Salon Skid Row, Get Nervous, Tony’s Talkin’ To, Gilbert Road Grotesque, Small Press Night at the Mercado, Let’s Talk About Sex, Grief Rites, Decentered, and Poetry Buffet. She also hosted the all-ages literary read, Donut Mind Readers (at an actual donut shop). During junior college, Jaime dabbled in stand-up and sketch comedy, which continues to influence her stage presence.

Storytelling Origins

Jaime broadcasted surreal stream of consciousness and occult poetry on KBOO Radio and occasionally directed, wrote, and acted in ritual theater and performance art as a youth and young adult. The first time she appeared on stage was with the legendary Portland-based experimental avant garde band Smegma when she was only 16. She eventually fronted several music projects ranging from experimental noise, punk, metal, and electro rap. Her literary debut was a sassy advice column. She went on to write music and film reviews and interviews for a variety of indie publications. She then reported for The Oregonian, Oregon Business Magazine, and Digital Trends covering science, business, and technology news.

Trajectory

Jaime spent her early childhood in Palm Beach County, Florida and moved with friends to the Pacific Northwest as a rebellious teen where she survived living on the streets and drug addiction before adulthood. She eventually earned a B.A. in English literature (and film) with minors in French and writing, and graduated cum laude from Portland State University where she also completed the Media Fellows program and co-created the Vanguard’s multimedia section, participated in the Model U.N., worked in education abroad, and volunteered at the Women’s Resource Center.

Jaime moved from Portland, Oregon to New Orleans at the end of 2021 to be warm, surrounded by palm trees, and closer to family. She works in public relations and specializes in intersecting data-driven strategic communications with diversity, equity, and inclusion— i.e., humanitarian ethics. She earned an Accreditation in Public Relations in 2023, through the Public Relations Society of America. She was awarded an English, M.A. from Tulane University in 2026. She’s currently working on a nonfiction book about women beatniks.

Lagniappe

As an act of dana practice and to stay grounded in compassion and community, Jaime offers her public relations expertise as a volunteer at the Henjyoji Shingon Buddhist Temple. She’s also on the board of advisors for NOLA Aikido.