Jaime Dunkle (she/they) mixes the profound and profane with an altruism that stems from her tenure as an award-winning journalist. Her stories range from fiction to personal narrative and often blur between the two. Her columns, new-journalism essays, fiction, and screenplays center on the paradox of absurdity and drama, foregrounding society’s underbelly.

Jaime’s 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, and the book is now in the process of becoming a novel of stories. Her short story Pain Flowers was published on the CLASH Media website in 2017. You can read her personal essays column, “Love in a Plain Brown Envelope,” and her flash-fiction excerpts from her forthcoming book, Stripped, in Exotic magazine online and in print (from 2016 to 2020). Other scribbles are posted here on her website.

Jaime has performed raw memoir and magical tales of depravity 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, and Grief Rites. She also curated the all-ages literary read, Donut Mind Readers.

Jaime broadcasted surreal stream of consciousness and melancholic poetry on KBOO Radio and occasionally directed, wrote, and acted in ritual theater and performance art as a youth and young adult. Her literary debut was an advice column in a now-defunct magazine called Uncovered. She went on to write arts & culture reviews and interviews for a variety of indie publications, and reported for news organizations such as The Oregonian, Oregon Business Magazine, and Digital Trends.

Jaime also dabbled in stand-up and sketch comedy and considers themself a humorist.

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 created the Vanguard’s multimedia section, participated in the Model U.N., worked in education abroad, and volunteered at the Women’s Resource Center.

As an act of dana practice and to stay grounded in compassion and community, Jaime offered her public relations expertise as a volunteer at the Henjyoji Shingon Buddhist Temple until recently due to relocating.

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 equity, diversity, and inclusion. As an academic, she is currently researching women beatniks.

They also host the Art of Peace podcast about the martial art of Aikido.