Celebrating Lesbian Vampires: Ex-Poetry Center Director Jewelle Gomez Celebrates Book Anniversary

TRUTH OUT -- For more than 30 years, she tells me, she worked in philanthropy, with stints at the New York State Council on the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission, Horizons Foundation and the Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University. Now 67, she is thrilled by “The Gilda Stories” comeback — the book was reissued in April 2016 by City Lights Books — and the extensive book tour that is taking her to cities across the U.S. The award-winning novel — winner of Lambda commendations for lesbian fiction and lesbian science fiction/fantasy — begins with a young black girl’s escape from slavery in 1850 and travels 200 years into the future, with numerous stops along the way, moving her from the 19th century, to the turn of the 20th century, to the environmental calamity facing North America in 2050. “I didn’t want Gilda to be a female serial killer,” Gomez says. “I had to think really carefully about the moments when she might take a life.”