Jamie O'Halloran

Jamie O’Halloran was born on Long Island and raised there, in New Orleans, and in Seattle where she received her M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. She has published widely in Irish, UK and US publications. Her poems have been anthologised in Romance Options: Love Poems for Today (Dedalus Press);  Chasing Shadows a poetry miscellany (Lapwing Publications); Local Wonders: Poems from Our Immediate Surroundings (Dedalus Press); Mischief, Caprice and other Poetic Strategies (Red Hen Press); So Luminous the Wildflowers: An Anthology of California Poets (Tebot Bach); And What Rough Beast: Poems at the End of the Century; and Grand Passion: Poets from Los Angeles and Beyond. Her chapbooks include SWEET TO THE GRIT (The Inevitable Press, 1998) and THE LANDSCAPE FROM BEHIND, with Jim Natal, (VC Press, 1997.)

Jamie 's entry Corona Connemara & Half a Crown was a winner in the 2021 Fool for Poetry International Poetry Competition.  She was the 2021 Artist in Residence at Brigit's Garden in County Galway, Ireland. Her entries to the 2021 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition, Cuírt New Writing Prize and Listowel Writers' Week Poetry Collection were shortlisted. Her entry to the 2022 Fish Prize was longlisted. She has won the Ann Stanford Poetry Prize, received awards from Verve Magazine, Red Dancefloor Press and The Sacred Beverage Press, and her poems have been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Her poem “Knock Wood” was published on 10,000 postcards and distributed throughout Los Angeles as part of the Sonnets at Work project. Her poetry reviews appear or are forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Lit Pub, Tinderbox Poetry Journal and The Tupelo Quarterly.

She has read her work throughout Southern California, including the Writers in Focus series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, KPFK FM’s Inspiration House, and Poetry Connexion with Wanda Coleman and Austin Straus, and Poets’ Café.  From 1993 to 2001 Jamie curated a literary reading series for the Sunland-Tujunga Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library where she also founded the McGroarty Writer’s Circle in 1994. During her tenure as co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets she edited several chapbooks and the series annual anthology.  She is a former associate editor for the webzine poetrybay.com.

Jamie is a retired public school teacher. She lives in County Galway, Ireland.