Jamie Bolker

I'm a writer, screenwriter, researcher, editor, and scholar of early and nineteenth-century American literature and culture. I'm currently working on an academic book and on three feature film screenplays. I have taught classes on composition, early American literature, post-apocalyptic environmental literature & film, animals in American literature, Animals Ancient and Modern, and Western intellectual history. My PhD is in English from Fordham University. I have published my work in academic journals and public venues, most recently in TIME and Chronicle of Higher Education. I have received over $100,000 in external fellowships to conduct my research. In the 2021-2022 academic year, I was a National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society. In 2020-21, I was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Long-Term Fellow at the Newberry Library. I've also received fellowships from the Library Company of Philadelphia, Winterthur Museum and Library, Peabody Essex Museum, and Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. I was previously an Assistant Professor of English at MacMurray College before it permanently closed in May 2020. I have taught at other colleges including Fordham, Marquette, Benedictine University, and College of DuPage. My academic book based on my dissertation is called "BEFORE GPS: Getting Lost and Found in Early America," and it is under consideration with a top university academic press.

The first is about a colonial-era romance based on the scandalous true story of my Puritan ancestors who settled in Massachusetts in the 1630s and were responsible for one of the first divorces in American history. This is called UNCLEAN and it made it to quarterfinalist status in the 2025 Inroads Fellowship Competition. The second is a biopic of Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark expedition fame and his life leading up to his tragic death by suicide. This is called UNDAUNTED, and is based on an article I wrote for TIME in their Made by History section, titled "America Still Isn’t Ready to Acknowledge That a Hero of National Myth Could Have Died by Suicide," published in December 2023. A third script I'm working on is called MOST HIGH, based on a man who believes he's the second coming of Jesus but ends up in a psych ward after doing too many edibles. This is comedy, revenge, and religious rolled into one.

My strengths as a screenwriter are my research skills and knowledge of several centuries of American literature and history (my PhD is in early American literature and I have an academic book in progress also). I've also led a weird life with many medical problems and have obsessions with Vincent Price (and want to one day remake Dr. Phibes based on my own experience with Cushing's disease), and crows and ravens, which I've published an academic article in J19 called "Stowe's Birds: Jim Crows and the Nature of Resistance in Dred." To read more about my mental health and career journey, feel free to read "Life as a Disposable Academic" in The Chronicle of Higher Education from 2024.

Long story short: I know what makes a good story.