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In Memoriam: Terri Lynn Jewell
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IN MEMORIAM: TERRI LYNN JEWELL Terri Lynn Jewell, who described herself as a "Black lesbian feminist poet and writer," died on Sunday, November 26, 1995, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Jewell's work has appeared in more than 300 publications, including Sinister Wisdom, Woman of Power, Sojourner, Kuumba, The American Voice, Calyx, The African-American Review, and The Black Scholar. Her writings also have appeared in the anthologies Riding Desire and A Lesbian of Color Anthology. Her Black Women's Perpetual Engagement Calendar: Our Names Are Many is scheduled for publication by Crossing Press in 1996, and at the time of her death she was editing a collection of Black lesbian writers, Dreadsisters, Lock-Sisters; a collection of writings by and about dreadwomen; and a collection of personal essays. She had been an active member of the editorial board of The Lesbian Review of Books since its inception. Jewell was the editor of The Black Woman's Gumbo Ya Ya (Crossing Press, 1993), an anthology of quotations by Black women. In her introduction, she writes: This collection was born out of my personal need for affirmation as a Black woman. I needed a coping mechanism for the growing conservatism in this nation...We are all here, calling out to and reaching one another, gathering at one another's feet and sharing the sustenance that has kept us alive and moving in the directions we must go. The quotations she selected for The Black Woman's Gumbo Ya Ya are a testimonial to the values she expressed in her life and in her writing; we reprint some here, with the permission of Crossing Press, as a testimonial to Terri Jewell's importance in our lives. "There's nothing neat and tidy about me, like a nice social revolution. With me goes a mad, passionate, insane, screaming world of ten thousand devils and...