Jewelle Gomez: The Gilda Stories
b'Show #147 | Guest: Jewelle Gomez is a writer, activist, and the author of many books including Forty-Three Septembers, Don\\u2019t Explain, The Lipstick Papers, Flamingoes and Bears, and Oral Tradition. The Gilda Stories was the recipient of two Lambda Literary Awards, and was adapted for the stage by the Urban Bush Women theater company in thirteen United States cities | Show Summary: Before Buffy, before Twilight, before Octavia Butler\\u2019s Fledgling, there was The Gilda Stories, Jewelle Gomez\\u2019s sexy vampire novel. This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who \\u201cshares the blood\\u201d by two women there, Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story. The winner of two Lambda Literary Awards (fiction and science fiction) THE GILDA STORIES is a very American odyssey. The 2016 anniversary edition has a new forward by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, one of UTNE Reader\\u2019s 50 Visionaries Transforming the World, a Reproductive Reality Check Shero, a Black Woman Rising nominee, and winner of one of the first-ever \\u201cToo Sexy for 501c3\\u201d trophies.'