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Don't Explain: Short Fiction
Short stories featuring lesbians. The story, Houston, is on a black lesbian vampire, while Water with Wine is on a love affair between a black professor and a white student.
160 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1998
4 people are currently reading
401 people want to read
About the author
Jewelle Gomez
50 books268 followersJewelle Gomez (b. 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American writer and cultural worker.
Gomez was raised by her great grandmother, Grace, who was born on Indian land in Iowa to an African American mother and Ioway father. Grace returned to New England before she was 14 when her father died and was married to John E. Morandus, a Wampanoag and descendent of Massasoit, the sachem for whom Massachusetts was named.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s she was shaped socially and politically by the close family ties with her great grandmother, Grace and grandmother Lydia. Their history of independence as well as marginalization in an African American community are threaded throughout her work. Her high school and college years were ripe with Black political and social movements which is reflected in much of her writing. Subsequent years in New York City placed her at the heart of Black theatre including work with the Frank Silvera Writers Workshop and many years as a stage manager for off Broadway productions.
There she became involved in lesbian feminist activism and magazine publication. She was a member of the Conditions (magazine) Collective, a lesbian feminist literary magazine. More recent writing has begun to reflect her Native American (Ioway, Wampanoag) heritage. Her work lives at the intersection of these multiple ethnicities, the ideals of lesbian/feminism and class.
Gomez is the author of seven books, but is most known for the double Lambda Literary Award winning novel The Gilda Stories (Firebrand Books, 1991). This novel, which reframes the traditional vampire mythology, taking a lesbian feminist perspective, is an adventure about an escaped slave who comes of age over two hundred years. According to scholar, Elyce Rae Helford, "Each stage of Gilda's personal voyage is also a study of life as part of multiple communities, all at the margins of mainstream white middle-class America." (UTOPIAN STUDIES, 3.22.01)
She also authored the theatrical adaptation of the novel Bones and Ash which toured 13 U.S. cities performed by the Urban Bush Women Company (1996). The book, which remains in print, was also issued by the Quality Paperback Book Club in an edition including the play.
Her other books include Don't Explain , a collection of short fiction; 43 Septembers , a collection of personal/political essays; Oral Tradition , poems collected and new.
Her fiction and poetry is included in over one hundred anthologies including the first anthology of Black speculative fiction, Dark Matter: A Century of African American Speculative Fiction , from Warner Books, edited by Sheree R. Thomas; Home Girls: a Black feminist Anthology from Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and Best American Poetry of 2001 edited by Robert Haas.
Gomez has written literary and film criticism for numerous publications including The Village Voice, The San Francisco Chronicle, Ms. Magazine and Black Scholar.
She's been interviewed in periodicals and journals over the past 25 years including Advocate, where writer Victoria Brownworth discussed her writing origins and political interests (September 21, 1993). In the Journal of Lesbian Studies (Vol. 5, #3) she was interviewed for an article entitled "Funding Lesbian Activism," which linked her career in philanthropy with her political roots. She's also interviewed in the 1999 film produced for Public Television, After Stonewall, directed by John Scagliotti.
Her newest work includes a forthcoming comic novel, Televised, which recounts the lives of survivors of the Black Nationalist movement and was excerpted in the anthology Gumbo edited by Marita Golden and E. Lyn Harris.
She is also authoring a play about James Baldwin being written in collaboration with Harry Wate
Gomez was raised by her great grandmother, Grace, who was born on Indian land in Iowa to an African American mother and Ioway father. Grace returned to New England before she was 14 when her father died and was married to John E. Morandus, a Wampanoag and descendent of Massasoit, the sachem for whom Massachusetts was named.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s she was shaped socially and politically by the close family ties with her great grandmother, Grace and grandmother Lydia. Their history of independence as well as marginalization in an African American community are threaded throughout her work. Her high school and college years were ripe with Black political and social movements which is reflected in much of her writing. Subsequent years in New York City placed her at the heart of Black theatre including work with the Frank Silvera Writers Workshop and many years as a stage manager for off Broadway productions.
There she became involved in lesbian feminist activism and magazine publication. She was a member of the Conditions (magazine) Collective, a lesbian feminist literary magazine. More recent writing has begun to reflect her Native American (Ioway, Wampanoag) heritage. Her work lives at the intersection of these multiple ethnicities, the ideals of lesbian/feminism and class.
Gomez is the author of seven books, but is most known for the double Lambda Literary Award winning novel The Gilda Stories (Firebrand Books, 1991). This novel, which reframes the traditional vampire mythology, taking a lesbian feminist perspective, is an adventure about an escaped slave who comes of age over two hundred years. According to scholar, Elyce Rae Helford, "Each stage of Gilda's personal voyage is also a study of life as part of multiple communities, all at the margins of mainstream white middle-class America." (UTOPIAN STUDIES, 3.22.01)
She also authored the theatrical adaptation of the novel Bones and Ash which toured 13 U.S. cities performed by the Urban Bush Women Company (1996). The book, which remains in print, was also issued by the Quality Paperback Book Club in an edition including the play.
Her other books include Don't Explain , a collection of short fiction; 43 Septembers , a collection of personal/political essays; Oral Tradition , poems collected and new.
Her fiction and poetry is included in over one hundred anthologies including the first anthology of Black speculative fiction, Dark Matter: A Century of African American Speculative Fiction , from Warner Books, edited by Sheree R. Thomas; Home Girls: a Black feminist Anthology from Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press and Best American Poetry of 2001 edited by Robert Haas.
Gomez has written literary and film criticism for numerous publications including The Village Voice, The San Francisco Chronicle, Ms. Magazine and Black Scholar.
She's been interviewed in periodicals and journals over the past 25 years including Advocate, where writer Victoria Brownworth discussed her writing origins and political interests (September 21, 1993). In the Journal of Lesbian Studies (Vol. 5, #3) she was interviewed for an article entitled "Funding Lesbian Activism," which linked her career in philanthropy with her political roots. She's also interviewed in the 1999 film produced for Public Television, After Stonewall, directed by John Scagliotti.
Her newest work includes a forthcoming comic novel, Televised, which recounts the lives of survivors of the Black Nationalist movement and was excerpted in the anthology Gumbo edited by Marita Golden and E. Lyn Harris.
She is also authoring a play about James Baldwin being written in collaboration with Harry Wate
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 30, 2009
The novella included in this saucy, sexy collection is hands-down the best bar-none sf/fantasy story.
In the current climate of paranormal romance mania
(Quick aside: thank you, World, for that; for Obama; and for lime and salt potato chips; in no particular order. We outsiders are coming into our own. Brave new day. Old slightly rusty world.)
I hope Jewelle takes the story out of the drawer and squeezes a novel out of it. We need more deliciousness like this. Fans of the mystic, fantastic and lesbian should run not walk to read it.
Note to Author Jewelle Gomez: I know it's perfect as it is. But longer, Darling. Please. Toss in a subplot; ordinary day-to-day life in a not so ordinary world; alternate chapts w/ letters, diary entries, junk mail from an oppressive government; show the heroines at work -they have fascinating jobs.
Note to self: stop nagging other people about what they should be writing and finish one of your own damn novels.
In the current climate of paranormal romance mania
(Quick aside: thank you, World, for that; for Obama; and for lime and salt potato chips; in no particular order. We outsiders are coming into our own. Brave new day. Old slightly rusty world.)
I hope Jewelle takes the story out of the drawer and squeezes a novel out of it. We need more deliciousness like this. Fans of the mystic, fantastic and lesbian should run not walk to read it.
Note to Author Jewelle Gomez: I know it's perfect as it is. But longer, Darling. Please. Toss in a subplot; ordinary day-to-day life in a not so ordinary world; alternate chapts w/ letters, diary entries, junk mail from an oppressive government; show the heroines at work -they have fascinating jobs.
Note to self: stop nagging other people about what they should be writing and finish one of your own damn novels.
January 14, 2019
The majority of stories in this collection by the author of The Gilda Stories (about a black lesbian vampire) do not contain a sci-fi or fantasy element. Most are lesbian romance/lesbian erotica and they are quite good. But the two that do have the element of fantasy, the novella "Lynx and Strand" and "Houston" (a new Gilda story), take up half the book and they are, in my opinion, the strongest pieces in the book and worth the price of admission all by themselves.
June 23, 2017
I've had this book for years & figured I'd read it during my month of Pride reading. Eh... the stories were ok- nothing amazing. The last two were painful though. I had to force myself to read the second to last one and the last one I didn't finish it was so weird. I really wanted to like JG but I won't be reading anything else by her.
July 8, 2015
Lovely. The way Jewelle Gomez uses language is so satisfying, I feel like she engages all your senses while still writing simple, direct prose. A pleasure to read.
December 26, 2025
This is Lesbian Fiction. All of the stories in this collection detail a kind of love for women that crosses not just romantic love but generational, familial love and the love between friends and neighbors. Women are seen in all of their complexities - every facet and complication and nuance.
April 4, 2018
I enjoyed this collection!
November 30, 2024
Great collection of short stories about Black lesbians. All rly enjoyable except for Steps, which though I’m sure is important and/or cathartic, was rly jarring for me. I wish there was a content warning in the book for CSA for that one. But regardless, the rest were rly sweet and I’d definitely read again. The last story is related to Gomez’s long form book The Gilda Stories.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews