Jamie Martinez Wood
Inspirational Speaker and Empowerment Specialist
A Mexican-American native of Orange County, California, is an inspirational speaker and empowerment specialist. She teaches workshops, leads retreats, and gives performances on personal power, earth spirituality, seasonal living, and ritual ceremony. Jamie also conducts classroom visits and assemblies on writing, publishing, and self-esteem.
We’ll be discussing her career path, the kinds of speaking she does, and what led her to her passion.
As a young girl, Jamie struggled with the pressure to adhere to proper behavior. In spite of this, she forged a whimsical connection with nature and fell in love with the art of writing and telling stories. This theme of connectedness with nature, telling stories, and being true to oneself runs throughout Jamie’s work.
At the age of eleven Jamie started the lifelong habit of keeping a diary and she has every diary she ever wrote in. This came in handy later when she started writing for teens.
In spite of her other loves, Jamie forced herself into the world of corporate public relations for five years, but never left her passion for writing, which she pursued by penning articles for children, teens, and the environment during this time. Her first published article, entitled No Way Out, is a fictional story based on fact about a girl dealing with her friend’s bulimia.
I’ll be asking Jamie why she decided to take a job that didn’t fit her spirit and energy, and how she had the courage to leave and do something different.
After a few career twists and turns, Jamie started to learn the ins and outs of the publishing world. One of her articles led her to describe California in the mid-1800s, and was followed by years of intense research into Early California, native peoples, and her Californio ancestors, Spaniards and Mexicans who lived in California beginning in 1767.
Her study of history dovetailed again with her writing when she co-wrote a screenplay about a Los Angeles Indian shaman, Toypurina, who raised a revolt against the Spanish Mission system in 1785.
How has Jamie’s study of history been both a personal and a professional journey, and what can she tell us about what she’s learned?
Following this, Jamie was recommended to an editor to write The Wicca Cookbook. She enlisted the help of her sister-in-law, a Ph.D. candidate in Early Modern European History, and together they devised and wrote the recipes, rituals, and lore that went into her first book.
She next wrote The Hispanic Baby Name Book. Around this time, she became active in promoting literature in her local community, in part by participating and speaking at the Latino Book and Family Festival, the Festival of Books at UCLA, elementary schools, and other writers’ events. Jamie also shot a treatment as the host of a cooking show and taught earth spirituality at retreats, specialty shops, and festivals.
What were the career connections between the cookbook, spirituality, a baby name book and TV? How did she choose what projects she pursued and what can we learn from her experiences?
The Wicca Cookbook enjoyed such acclaim that she was asked to write a book for teens. For this project, she referred to her early journals and a box full of notes passed in class.
Reading her notes and journal entries when feeling disempowered and victimized motivated her to create visualizations and affirmations to move into a place of power. These new perspectives comprise the “spells” of The Teen Spell Book. Building on the success of her books and teachings, she wrote The Wicca Herbal and The Enchanted Diary.
Years after they met, an editorial consultant recommended Jamie to write a book about Latinos and magic for teens which turned into Rogelia’s House of Magic, a story about three not-so-ordinary Latino American teens who learn magic and life lessons from a shaman curandera (healer), which was released earlier this summer. This novel is currently being considered for treatment as a film (see the beautiful preview on her website).
This young adult novel, Rogelia’s House of Magic, marks her return to the world of fiction. She enjoys writing for and empowering young people on their life’s journey and to that end has created an interactive Teen Page on her website, and also has led a classroom project to transform her novel into a play by and for teens.
I’ll be asking Jamie about her teen work, why she’s so drawn to this audience, and with which of her characters she identifies with the most.
When asked how all her diverse books fit together, Jamie points first and foremost to her desire to motivate others to find the greatness within themselves and encourage them to share these unique talents with the world.
Another of her recent books, The Latino Writers and Journalists book, a collection of 150 biographical essays, won the 2008 International Latino Book Award for Best Reference Book at the Book Expo of America earlier this year.
Jamie did a lot of interesting preparation work for the Writers and Journalists book.
What insight can we gather from the interviews she conducted?
To add to Jamie’s joy, she has two sons, ages 9 and 11, who enjoy soccer.
To learn more about Jamie, visit her at www.jamiemartinezwood.com.