JEWELLE GOMEZ 

Jewelle Gomez (Cape Verdean/Ioway/Wampanoag) is the author of eight books, including the black lesbian vampire novel The Gilda Stories (in print continuously since 1991) and the winner of two Lambda Literary Awards. Her adaptation for the stage, Bones and Ash, was commissioned and performed by the New York-based Urban Bush Women Company and toured 13 US theatres. Other theatrical works include Waiting For Giovanni (about author/activist James Baldwin) and Leaving the Blues (about singer/composer Alberta Hunter). Gomez’s fiction, nonfiction, and poetry are included in more than 100 anthologies, among them: Home GirlsBlack Feminist Anthology; Dark Matter: 100 Years of African American Speculative Fiction; Butch/Femme; Red Indian Road West; and Women of the Bite. She has written for numerous publications, including San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, MS Magazine, The Advocate, Essence, and HOT WIRE: The Journal of Women’s Music & Culture. Her most recent collection of poetry, Name Poems, explores her multi-ethnic heritage. Gomez was on the original staff of one of the first weekly black television shows in the country, Say Brother (WGBH), has been on the founding boards of many organizations, and has won multiple national awards and fellowships. She and her spouse Diane Sabin were litigants in the original lawsuit against the state of California suing for the right to marry.