Jamelah comes from a large family full of storytellers, and she caught the bug as soon as she was able to talk. As a child, she was frequently in trouble for making up wild first-person stories (other people referred to them as big lies), but as she got older, she learned the same behavior was perfectly acceptable as long as she wrote things down and called them fiction. Her favorite thing in the entire world is being in the middle of a moment and thinking “I can’t wait to tell this story.” Fortunately, this happens to her at least once a day. Even more fortunately, this makes her a big hit at parties. She brings her love of writing and stories to Utata, turning out weekly Front Page entries and serving as Assistant Editor.

Over the years, Jamelah has been a landscaper, a newspaper reporter, a graphic designer, a secretary and an AmeriCorps volunteer, and it seems that no matter what she does, she is frequently asked to spell and proofread things. She lives in Michigan with her hyperactive border collie. Neither of them can sit still for long.