Jamie Lisa Forbes was raised on a ranch along the Little Laramie River near Laramie, Wyoming. She attended the University of Colorado where she obtained degrees in English and philosophy. After fourteen months living in Israel, she returned to her family’s ranch where she lived for another fifteen years.

In 1994, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. In 2001, she graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began her North Carolina law practice.

Her first novel, Unbroken, won the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction in 2011. Her collection of short stories, The Widow Smalls and Other Stories, won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015. Her law practice gave her the opportunity to travel many of the back roads of North Carolina and meet the unique and diverse individuals who inspired Eden.

In 2024, Pronghorn Press published Forbes’ historical novel, Sunny Gale, highlighting the early era of women in rodeo. Sunny Gale earned a 2025 Will Rogers medallion for excellence in Western media. It was also listed in Best Indie Books of 2024 by Kirkus Reviews and was a 2025 finalist in both the Feathered Quill Book Awards (Women’s Fiction) and the Eric Hoffer Book Awards (Historical Fiction).