Jewelle Gomez is a writer, activist and the author of the double Lambda Award-winning novel, The Gilda Stories. Her other publications include The Lipstick Papers, Flamingoes and Bears and Oral Tradition. Formerly the executive director of the Poetry Center and the American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University, she has also worked in philanthropy for many years. She is the former director of the literature programme at the New York State Council on the Arts, the director of Grants and Community Initiatives for Horizon and the President of the San Francisco Library Commission. She lives in San Francisco.