Jewelle Gomez

Jewelle Gomez, (Cape Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway), playwright, novelist, poet and cultural worker is the author of eight books including the first Black Lesbian vampyre novel, The Gilda Stories, which has been in print more than 25 years. The novel will soon be seen as a television mini-series directed by award-winning director, Cheryl Dunye. Jewelle’s fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in over 100 anthologies from Home Girls to the Oxford World Treasury of Love Stories to Red Indian Road West. Her trilogy of plays about African American artists in the first half of the 20th century was commissioned by New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco where she is playwright-in-residence. The first in the series, Waiting for Giovanni, about writer/activist James Baldwin, premiered at NCTC and had its New York City premiere in 2018. Leaving the Blues, about singer/songwriter Alberta Hunter, premiered in 2017. The third play in the trilogy, Unpacking in P’Town, about a group of retired vaudeville performers, will premiere in 2021. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @VampyreVamp.