Jewell Parker Rhodes

Jewell Parker Rhodes

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Jewell Parker Rhodes is professor of Creative Writing and American Literature and former Director of the MFA Program. Her stories have been anthologized in Children of the Night: Best Short Stories by Black Writers and Ancestral House: The Black Short Story in the Americas and Europe. Her short fiction has appeared in Callaloo, Calyx, The Seattle Review, Feminist Studies, Peregrine, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Shooting Star Review among others. Her work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Her scholarly and non-fiction articles appear in various academic journals, Ms. Magazine, and in many composition texts. Among her numerous awards are the Yaddo Creative Writing Fellowship, the National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and two Distinguished Teaching Awards. She also was selected as the Creative Writing Delegate for the Modern Language Association. Jewell received a Bachelor of Arts in Drama Criticism, a Master of Arts in English, and a Doctor of Arts in English (Creative Writing) from Carnegie-Mellon University. In 1995 she earned the Distinguished Teaching Award in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University.

Douglass' Women
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Format: Hardcover, 368pp.
ISBN: 0743410092
Publisher: Atria Books
Pub. Date: September 2002

Douglass' Women reimagines the lives of an American hero, Frederick Douglass, and two women - his wife and his mistress - who loved him and lived in his shadow. Anna Douglass, a free woman of color, was Douglass' wife of forty-four years, who bore him five children. Ottilie Assing, a German-Jewish intellectual, provided him the companionship of the mind that he needed. Hurt by Douglass' infidelity, Anna rejected his notion that only literacy freed the mind. For her, familial love rivaled intellectual pursuits. Ottilie was raised by parents who embraced the ideal of free love, but found herself entrapped in an unfulfilling love triangle with America's most famous self-taught slave for nearly three decades.

African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Nonfiction
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Format: Paperback, 368pp.
ISBN: 0767905784
Publisher: Broadway Books
Pub. Date: January 2002
Edition Desc: 1ST

In college and graduate school, Jewell Parker Rhodes never encountered a single reading assignment or exercise that featured a person of color. Now she has made it her mission to rectify the situation, gathering advice and inspiring tips tailored for African Americans seeking to express their life experiences. Comprehensive and totally energizing, the African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Nonfiction bursts with supportive topics such as:

·Finding your voice
·Getting to know your literary ancestors
·Overcoming a bruised ego and finding the determination to pursue your dreams
·Gathering material and conducting research
·Tapping sweet, bittersweet, and joyful memories
·Knowing when to keep revising, and when to let go

The guide also features unforgettable excerpts from luminaries such as Maya Angelou, Brent Staples, Houston Baker, and pointers from bestselling African American authors Patrice Gaines, E. Lynn Harris, James McBride, John Hope Franklin, Pearl Cleage, Edwidge Danticat, and many others. It is a uniquely nurturing and informative touchstone for affirming, bearing witness, leaving a legacy, and celebrating the remarkable journey of the self.

Magic City
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Format: Paperback, 288pp.
ISBN: 0060929073
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Pub. Date: June 1998

Based on true events, Magic City is the powerful story of two people who unwittingly lit the match that burned the community of Greenwood to the ground and erased it from the history books. Jewell Parker Rhodes imagines this tragedy through the eyes of Joe Samuels and Mary Keane, two people fundamentally divided by race but forever joined by fate. When Joe, a young man entranced by Houdini, is falsely accused of rape, he must perform his greatest escape by eluding a bloodthirsty lynch mob. Haunted by the mystery of his brother's death and the dark truth behind his father's success, Joe soon learns that he has been running all his life and that this may actually be the moment to turn and fight. Mary, the motherless daughter of a poor farmer who tries to marry her off to the farmhand who viciously raped her, is barely able to imagine what life could be like outside the prison of her own home. Now, however, she must unlock the courage to help exonerate the man she has accused with her panicked cry. Magic City, a mythic tale of violent revenge, is a portrait of an era, climaxing in the heroic but doomed stand that ultimately pitted the National Guard against a small band of black men determined to defend the town they had built into the "Negro Wall Street." Depicted against a backdrop of jail escapes, ghosts, family betrayal, and lost loves, it is a tale at once harrowing and redemptive.

Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau
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Format: Paperback, 436pp.
ISBN: 0312119313
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pub. Date: January 1995

New Orleans in the mid-nineteenth century is a city overflowing with white aristos, black creoles, and African slaves, a city that pulses with crowds, with commerce, and with the power and spectacle of the voodoo religion. At the center of the ritual is Marie Laveau, the notorious voodooienne, worshipped and feared by blacks and whites alike. Marie's followers claimed that she walked on water and sucked poison from a snake's jowls, that she raised the dead and murdered two men. Voodoo Dreams is the spellbinding story of the woman behind the legend. Raised by her Grandmere in the Louisiana bayou, Marie ventures to New Orleans and begins a journey of self-discovery, hoping to find her lost Maman and understand the visions that haunt her dreams. Instead, she runs headlong into the brutality of slavery and oppression, and into the arms of John, the voodoo doctor who promises to teach her what Grandmere will not. As she falls under his spell, John sweeps Marie into a world of voodoo ceremonies, of drama and manipulation, and of sometimes terrifying power. A mesmerizing combination of history and storytelling, Voodoo Dreams marks the debut of an important new voice in fiction.

Free within Ourselves; Fiction Lessons for Black Authors

Format: Paperback, 352pp.
ISBN: 0385491751
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Incorporated
Pub. Date: October 1999
Edition Desc: 1 ED

A top-notch writer's guide filled with practical guidance, ssays, journal exercises, and illuminating examples, as well as advice from E. Lynn Harris, Charles Johnson, Yolanda Joe, Bebe Moore Campbell, Rita Dove, John Edgar Wideman, and others.