Jamie Li is a writer based in San Diego, CA

portrait of the author looking into the distance. she is sitting and wearing a green wrap dress, gold chain, and red earrings

About

she/her/她

Born in Guangdong, China and raised in Seattle, Jamie Li 李嘉铭 now lives in Southern California. As the illegal second child born under China’s One-Child Policy, themes such as family (dis)connection, sacrifice, and irreverence permeate her work.She holds a BA from Dartmouth College and is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where she also serves as Associate Managing Editor for its literary magazine, Hunger Mountain.Before pursuing her MFA, she built a decade-long career in Silicon Valley during the heyday of tech optimism. Much of this humorous experience and the characters she’s met along the way tend to find their way into her writing.A VONA/Voices alum, she has published in Slant’d Magazine, Mangoprism, Lit Mag News and others. She is working on her first novel.

Photo of the author reading into a microphone as an audience looks on

Selected Work

Writing

Storytelling & facilitation

  • Facilitator — “We Have What We Need to Flourish” event at Grist — Mar 2022

  • Pitch coach — ICA Fund's annual Accelerator Pitch event — Oct 2021

  • Facilitator for the “Grief Medicine” event at Food Culture Collective — Jun 2021

  • Facilitator — “Listening to Black Leaders” event at Food Culture Collective  — Aug-Sep 2020

  • Facilitator — “Why Inclusion Matters to Me” storytelling workshop at Walmart — Sep 2020

Awards & recognition

Contact

Reach out if you want to talk about the writing life, what books you're reading, Kali Uchis, and quitting your corporate job to pursue art.


📸 Portrait by Ariana Pearl
📸 Reading @ MOCA by Amy Mai Photography

baby photo of the author