Jamie Leigh Lorente is a Cuban-American writer, veteran, and advocate. She writes to reclaim the body and reframe the narrative of survival. Her work appears in My Teeth Don’t Chew on Shrapnel, NAILED Magazine, and Poetic Prosthesis: Trauma and Language in Contemporary Veterans’ Writing (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). She teaches writing at San Francisco Film School and facilitates veteran writing workshops in Portland. Her short documentary film My Body Is explores the healing power of poetry. The author splits her time between Eugene, Oregon and Santa Cruz, California.

"Lorente charts her winding path to self-love while revisiting her complicated childhood in this memoir.The memoir’s most compelling thread is her slow realization that she is truly her “father’s daughter,” not only in looks but in avoidant behavior. This revelation—decades in the making—has brought her to a place where she can begin to process her past grief and learn to trust her sense of self.An affecting account of one woman’s difficult journey to selfhood." —Kirkus Reviews

Jamie Leigh Lorente is a Cuban-American writer, veteran, and advocate. She writes to reclaim the body and reframe the narrative of survival. Her work appears in My Teeth Don’t Chew on Shrapnel, NAILED Magazine, and Poetic Prosthesis: Trauma and Language in Contemporary Veterans’ Writing (Edinburgh University Press, 2022). She teaches writing at San Francisco Film School and facilitates veteran writing workshops in Portland. Her short documentary film My Body Is explores the healing power of poetry. The author splits her time between Eugene, Oregon and Santa Cruz, California.

"Lorente charts her winding path to self-love while revisiting her complicated childhood in this memoir.The memoir’s most compelling thread is her slow realization that she is truly her “father’s daughter,” not only in looks but in avoidant behavior. This revelation—decades in the making—has brought her to a place where she can begin to process her past grief and learn to trust her sense of self.An affecting account of one woman’s difficult journey to selfhood." —Kirkus Reviews