Jamie Louise Madigan

Jamie Louise Madigan moved to Calgary with her parents when she was just six years old. Her parents had visited Banff and Lake Louise on their honeymoon and fell in love with the Rockies.

Jamie Louise Madigan has been a restauranteur her whole life but has always found herself drawn to artistry and creative writing. However, it wasn’t until her first relationship ended in wrenching heartbreak that she put pen to paper in the form of a poetic outburst.

“I was just going through so much pain at the time, and I suddenly had all of these emotions inside of me that I needed to get it out on paper,” Madigan says. And then I looked through it over the years, and I was like, ‘Oh, I actually have a decent amount of work here.’” 

That’s when the idea came to organize her words and arrange the poems chronologically to tell her story. The pandemic gave Jamie the time to put her work into a book titled Lipstick Stains and Coffee Cups. The name is a metaphorical reflection that divides the book into two parts. 

The first half, Lipstick Stains, is about the severity and immense psychological distress Jamie experienced with an abusive and manipulative partner.  “A lipstick stain is symbolic of how a tumultuous relationship leaves a lasting impression,” Jamie explains. “The second half represents a ground-breaking shift in perspective. It’s a euphoric sense of comfort and warmth towards the eccentricities of life, the triumph of the human spirit, and the adrenaline rush of new beginnings – like a piping hot cup of coffee.”