Jewelle Gomez is a writer and activist and the author of the double Lambda Award-winning novel, THE GILDA STORIES from Firebrand Books. Her adaptation of the book for the stage -- Bones & Ash: a Gilda Story---was performed by the Urban Bush Women company in 13 U.S. cities.

She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship and two California Arts Council fellowships.

Her fiction, essays, criticism and poetry have appeared in numerous periodicals. Among them: The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, The Village Voice; The Advocate, Ms Magazine, ESSENCE Magazine and Black Scholar. Her work has appeared in such anthologies as HOME GIRLS, READING BLACK READING FEMINIST, DAUGHTERS OF AFRICA and the OXFORD WORLD TREASURY OF LOVE STORIES.

She has served on literary panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the California Arts Council and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

She was on the original staff of "Say Brother," one of the first weekly, black television shows in the U.S. (WGBH-TV Boston) and on the founding board of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). She is currently on the national advisory boards of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, POETS & WRITERS, Inc., and the Human Sexuality Archives of Cornell University. An early member of the board of the Astraea Foundation she is currently on the funding board of the Open Meadows Foundation. She also serves on the national advisory board for a new film by Nancy D. Kates, AMERICAN SOCRATES: The Life of Bayard Rustin.

Her publications include three collections of poetry-THE LIPSTICK PAPERS (1980) FLAMINGOES AND BEARS (1986), both self published. The most recent is ORAL TRADITION from Firebrand Books (1995). She edited with Eric Garber a fantasy fiction anthology entitled SWORDS OF THE RAINBOW (Alyson Publications (1996) and selected the fiction for THE BEST LESBIAN EROTICA OF 1997 (Cleis).

She is also the author a book of personal and political essays entitled FORTY THREE SEPTEMBERS (Firebrand Books 1993) and a new collection of short fiction, DON'T EXPLAIN (Firebrand Books 1997).

She has presented lectures and taught at numerous institutions of higher learning including San Francisco State University, Hunter College, Rutgers University, New College of California, Grinnell College, San Diego City College, The Ohio State University and the University of Washington (Seattle). She is the former director of the Literature Program and the New York State Council on the Arts and most recently served for three years as executive director of the Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University.

Her new projects include a comic novel about black activists of the 1960s as they face middle age. She is also working with actor Harry Waters, Jr. and director, Arturo Catricala on a collaborative performance piece based on the life of author James Baldwin.

Best Lesbian Erotica 1997 (Annual) by Jewelle Gomez (Editor), Tristan Taormino (Editor)

As irreverent and sexy as last year's edition, Best Lesbian Erotica 1997 promises stories that may even outshine works by that list of contenders, which included such luminaries as DOrothy Allison, Pat Califia, Kate Bornstein, Lucy Jane Bledsoe and lots of hot, new voices.