ciety. The anthologies include Wild Women Don’t
Wear No Blues: Black Women Writers on Love, Men,
and Sex (1993), which, according to one reviewer,
“leaves virtually no aspect of womanist issues un-
turned” (James, 19); Skin Deep: Black Women and
White Women Write about Race (1995), with Susan
Shreve; and Gumbo: Stories by Black Writers, with
E. LYNN HARRIS (2002). Golden’s first collection of
essays, Saving Our Sons: Raising Black Children in a
Turbulent World (1995), is based on the high death
rate among young black men and is a personal
narrative about Golden’s son, Michael, who grew
up in the “crime-ridden” streets of Washington,
D.C. In it, Golden raises questions about why the
collective nurturing of family and community is
not enough to save young black males. Her collec-
tion A Miracle Everyday: Triumph and Transforma-
tion in the Lives of Single Mothers (1999) candidly
documents and celebrates the successful sons and
daughters of single mothers who are not counted
in extant negative statistics.
Golden has received a number of awards rec-
ognizing her writing and her work as a literary
cultural activist, including the 1992 Mayor’s Arts
Award for Excellence in an Artistic Discipline, an
honorary doctorate from the University of Rich-
mond, induction into the International Hall of
Fame for Writers of African Descent at the Gwen-
dolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University,
Woman of the Year Award from Zeta Phi Beta,
a Distinguished Alumni Award from American
University, the Barnes and Noble 2001 Writers for
Writers Award presented by Poets and Writers, and
the 2002 Authors Guild Award for Distinguished
Service to the Literary Community.
Writing over two decades and representing a
wide range of disciplines, Golden has established
herself as a distinct voice among contemporary
black women writers. Her works have been widely
anthologized, and her articles and essays have
appeared in The New York Times, The Washing-
ton Post, ESSENCE, Africa Woman, and the Daily
Times. Lecturing nationally and internationally,
Golden has held writer-in-residence positions at
many schools, including Wayne State University,
Brandeis University, Spelman College, Hampton
University, Antioch College, Simmons College,
Columbia College, the College of William and
Mary, Old Dominion University, and Howard
University. She is the founder of the Washington,
D.C.–based African-American Writers Guild and
the cofounder and president/CEO of the Zora
Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, which
presents two national fiction awards to black col-
lege writers each spring.
Golden has taught at Roxbury Community
College, Emerson College, American University,
and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
Currently, she is senior writer in the graduate
M.F.A. creative writing program at Virginia Com-
monwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She
is married to Joe Murray, a high school educator,
and has one son, Michael.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Golden, Marita. “Autobiography as Mirror and
Shadow: The Seductions of the Self.” Thoughts on
an Unruly and Surprising Literary Genre. Sympo-
sium, Columbia University, October 1999.
Jackson, Edward. “The African Male-Black Ameri-
can Female Relationship in Lorraine Hansberry’s
A Raisin in the Sun and Marita Golden’s Migra-
tions of the Heart.” In Images of Black Men in Black
Women Writers 1950–1990, 33–41. Bristol, Ind.:
Wyndham Hall, 1992.
James, Jennifer. “Something to Say—and the Means
to Say It.” (Review of Wild Women Don’t Wear No
Blues: Black Women Writers on Love, Men and Sex,
edited by Marita Golden) Belles Lettres 9 (Winter
1993–94): 19–22.
Warren, Nagueyalti. Review of Long Distance Life, by
Marita Golden. Black American Literature Forum
24, no. 4 (Winter 1990): 803–808.
Loretta G. WoodardGomez, Jewelle (1948– )
Born in Boston and now living in San Francisco,
novelist, poet, and activist Jewelle Gomez holds a
master’s degree from the Columbia School of Jour-
nalism. Among her various university teaching andGomez, Jewelle 207