Jamie J. Brunson

“It is your responsibility to navigate your leadership role through the world to achieve a greater good.”

Jamie J., Executive Director of First Person Arts (FPA), is an artist/activist, four-time, NEA grantee, produced playwright, and published poet. She uses storytelling to build community and catalyze dialogue around important issues. At FPA she hosts a new podcast #Us, which has been featured on live/national podcasts, and produces the Annual First Person Arts Festival, a one-of-a-kind event featuring true, personal stories across multiple disciplines. Jamie J. sits on the planning committee for the Philadelphia Department of Behavior Health & Intellectual disABILITY’s Services Engaging Males of Color Initiative and has lectured at Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Drexel University. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and BA from Temple University. A servant leader, Jamie J. is inspired by her late grandmother who lived through Jim Crow and WWII but still taught her to love and forgive.  

What does leadership mean to you?

“Leadership to me means service and responsibility to others. The more people you are blessed to lead, the more people you serve. And it is your responsibility to navigate your leadership role through the world to achieve a greater good. My Everyday Genius would be my late-grandmother. She lived through Jim Crow and WWII and still taught us to love and forgive.”

Biography:

Jamie J., Executive Director of First Person Arts (FPA), is an artist/activist using storytelling to build community and catalyze dialogue around important issues. Host of #US, the new podcast by First Person Arts, WHYY’s Commonspace Radio Hour and Podcast series, the FPA Podcast, and COVID Stories – A Digital Memoir, is regularly featured on live/ national podcasts. She is also producer of the Annual First Person Arts Festival - the only festival of-its-kind to feature true, personal stories across multiple disciplines. - and creator of FPAs' Applied Storytelling division that creates customized storytelling experiences to help build community for our partners. and is a member of the Strategic Planning Committee of Philadelphia’s Dept. of Behavioral Health & Intellectual disABILITY's Services Engaging Males of Color Initiative. She lectured at Bryn Mawr College, University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, is a four-time NEA grantee, produced playwright and published poet. Brunson holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and BA from Temple University.