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Jewelle Gomez
Jewelle Gomez (born September 11, 1948) is an American author, poet, critic and playwright. She lived in New York City for 22 years, working in public television, theater, as well as philanthropy, before relocating to the West Coast. Her writing—fiction, poetry, essays and cultural criticism—has appeared in a wide variety of outlets, both feminist and mainstream. Her work centers on women's experiences, particularly those of LGBTQ women of color. She has been interviewed for several documentaries focused on LGBT rights and culture. Background Jewelle Gomez was born on September 11, 1948, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dolores Minor LeClaire, a nurse, and John Gomez, a bartender. Gomez was raised by her great-grandmother, Grace, who was born on Indian land in Iowa to an African-American mother and Ioway father. Grace returned to New England before she was 14, when her father died, and she was married to John E. Morandus, a Wampanoag and descendant of Massasoit, the sachem for whom ...
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Native Americans In The United States
Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States ( Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, Alaska and territories of the United States are generally known by other terms). There are 574 federally recognized tribes living within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. As defined by the United States Census, "Native Americans" are Indigenous tribes that are originally from the contiguous United States, along with Alaska Natives. Indigenous peoples of the United States who are not listed as American Indian or Alaska Native include Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, and the Chamorro people. The US Census groups these peoples as " Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders". European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, resulted in a precipitous decline in Native American population because of new diseases, wars, ethni ...
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Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer than 100. An "off-Broadway production" is a production of a play, musical, or revue that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. Some shows that premiere off-Broadway are subsequently produced on Broadway. History The term originally referred to any venue, and its productions, on a street intersecting Broadway in Midtown Manhattan's Theater District, the hub of the American theatre industry. It later became defined by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers as a professional venue in Manhattan with a seating capacity of at least 100, but not more than 499, or a production that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. Previously, regardless of the size ...
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A Century Of Speculative Fiction From The African Diaspora
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it fro ...
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Callaloo (journal)
''Callaloo, A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters'', is a quarterly literary magazine established in 1976 by Charles Rowell, who remains its editor-in-chief. It contains creative writing, visual art, and critical texts about literature and culture of the African diaspora, and is the longest continuously running African-American literary magazine. Notable writers published include Ernest Gaines, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Lucille Clifton, Edwidge Danticat, Thomas Glave, Samuel Delany, and John Edgar Wideman. It is well known for connecting Black artists from different cultures and sponsoring upcoming writers. It has been published by the Johns Hopkins University Press since 1986. History Charles Rowell initially conceived the idea for ''Callaloo'' in 1974 out of necessity for a Black South forum. Rowell was first inspired to create a Black South forum when writing an article on a recent interview he had with Sterling Brown, a poet and cri ...
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Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is an American writer, independent scholar, poet, activist and educator based in Durham, North Carolina. Biography Gumbs holds a PhD in English, African and African-American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University. Gumbs was the Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts in the Department of Theater Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota (2017–2019). Gumbs is the Founder and Director of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and founder of BrokenBeautiful Press. She is the dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and printed programmes (or helps others with these tasks), consults auth ... for "dat Black Mermaid Man Lady", a performance by Sharon Bridgforth. Gumbs has spent the majority of her career as an independent writer and scholar outside of formal academic institutions. Gumbs teaches o ...
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Lesbian Feminism
Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activities towards their fellow women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism was most influential in the 1970s and early 1980s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, but began in the late 1960s and arose out of dissatisfaction with the New Left, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, sexism within the gay liberation movement, and homophobia within popular women's movements at the time. Many of the supporters of Lesbianism were actually women involved in gay liberation who were tired of the sexism and centering of gay men within the community and lesbian women in the mainstream women's movement who were tired of the homophobia involved in it. Some key thinkers and activists include Charlotte Bunch, Rita Mae Brown, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Marilyn Frye, Mary Daly, S ...
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Vampire
A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been Vampire folklore by region, recorded in cultures around the world; the term ''vampire'' was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as ''shtriga'' in Albanian mythology, Albania, ''vrykolakas'' in G ...
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Firebrand Books
Firebrand Books is a publishing house established in 1984 by Nancy K. Bereano---a lesbian/feminist activist in Ithaca, NY. Karen Oosterhouse, publisher since 2003, describes Firebrand as "the independent publisher of record for feminist and lesbian fiction and nonfiction," championing "authors whose work has been marginalized: women of color, women coming out of poverty, transwomen, the genderqueer, and other underrepresented voices." It is among the many feminist and lesbian publishing houses that grew out of the Women's Press Movement; other presses of that period include Naiad Press, Persephone and Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. From 1984 to 2000, Firebrand Books published literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry on lesbian and feminist themes, placing publisher Nancy Bereano "at the forefront of lesbian and small press publishing." Firebrand was the first publisher of Dorothy Allison's 1988 short story collection ''Trash'', which subsequently won double Lambda Litera ...
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The Gilda Stories
''The Gilda Stories'' is the 1991 debut novel of American author and activist Jewelle Gomez. Published in 1991, this speculative fiction vampire novel follows the experiences of a black lesbian heroine whose power and morality challenge assumptions about the vampire myth. Readers see this central character travel through time and lead multiple lives. In her first life, she is an unnamed runaway slave in Louisiana in 1850. After killing a bounty hunter in self-defense, she is rescued by Gilda, a vampire who runs a brothel named Woodard's. The women at the brothel educate her, become her family, and introduce her to vampirism and eternal life. Eventually, she becomes a vampire herself and adopts Gilda's name. The novel follows by providing historical Vignette (literature), vignettes of different cities and time periods, which highlight key moments in Gilda's life. She is in California in 1890, Missouri in 1921, Massachusetts in 1955, New York in 1981, New Hampshire in 2020, and the "L ...
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Lambda Literary Award
Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted in 1989. The program has grown from 14 awards in early years to 24 awards today. Early categories such as HIV/AIDS literature were dropped as the prominence of the AIDS crisis within the gay community waned, and categories for bisexual and transgender literature were added as the community became more inclusive. In addition to the primary literary awards, Lambda Literary also presents a number of special awards. Award categories Current Notes 1 In both the bisexual and transgender categories, presentation may vary according to the number of eligible titles submitted in any given year. If the number of titles warrants, then separate awards are presented in either two (Fiction and Nonfiction, with the Fiction category inclusive of poetr ...
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Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture and speculative fiction, encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences. While Afrofuturism is most commonly associated with science fiction, it can also encompass other speculative genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and magic realism. The term was coined by Mark Dery, an American Cultural critic in 1993 and explored in the late 1990s through conversations led by Alondra Nelson. Ytasha L. Womack, writer of ''Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture'', defines it as "an intersection of imagination, technology, the future and liberation". She also follows up with a quote by the curator Ingrid LaFleur who defines it as ...
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