Terri Jewell at Womonwrites 1984. Photo courtesy of Rand Hall.

Terri Jewell (1954-95), Black, lesbian-feminist poet, lived in Lansing, Michigan, for the last twenty-plus years of her life, and we are happy to claim her for the South. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1984, Terri attended Womonwrites: the Southeast Lesbian Writers Conference in Georgia with the Louisville League of Lesbian Writers.

During her short life, Terri Jewell published one book of poetry, Succulent Heretic (Lansing, MI: Oral Tortuga Press, 1994), and the collection The Black Woman’s Gumbo Ya-Ya: Quotations by Black Women (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1993).

Terri’s book, Our Names Are Many: The Black Woman’s Book of Days (Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1996), was published posthumously. Terri Jewell’s poems also appear in scores of journals and are anthologized in collections like A Fierce Brightness: 25 Years of Women’s Poetry, When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, and If I Had My Life to Live Over, I Would Pick More Daisies.

When our Herstory Project editors went looking for women who remembered Terri Jewell, we found her Louisville League of Lesbian Writers friends eager to participate.

The Pagoda was a lesbian residential community and cultural center on the beach near St. Augustine, Florida, from 1977 to 1999. Rose Norman interviewed founders, residents, and guests for the story of how it came to be and how it lasted so long.

Laurel Ferejohn at Table Rock Writers Workshop in 2018

A believer in the power of community-oriented periodicals, Laurel Ferejohn helped create the The Newsletter, a vital, lesbian underground publication.