Juliana “Jewels” Smith is a writer, an educator, and the creator of (H)afrocentric, a comic book series that follows the lives of five undergrads of color who navigate fictional Ronald Reagan University in Oakland. Jewels was born on August 2 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.
She got a BA in Sociology from UC Riverside in 2003 and an MA in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego in 2006. She has given lectures at the Schomburg Center, New York Comic Con, Studio Museum of Harlem, Baltimore Book Festival, and The Cooper Union. She has also traveled to Chicago, IL and Queens, NY teaching workshops on how to self-publish.
Smith first developed (H)afrocentric as a comic book series with illustrator Ronald R. Nelson and colorist Mike Hampton. (H)afrocentric, since its launching in 2010, has been featured in Ebony, Gawker, GOOD, SF Examiner, and Afro Punk and on KPFA and CUNY TV. In 2011, (H)afrocentric was launched at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. Smith released new volumes after its initial launching. In 2016, she developed (H)afrocentric into a weekly comic strip in The Establishment. Due to the success of (H)afrocentric, Jewels cowrote a web series with Chanel Glover called Sasha & Condi. “We call it ‘Drunk History’ meets ‘60 Minutes’ . . . ” (qtd. in Rao).
Haunts:
- Code Nation, 995 Market Street, c/o WeWork, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103. You can find Jewels around the Bay Area, including in Oakland and in San Francisco. She works as a Code Nation Partnerships Manager.
~ by Janice King ~
External Links:
Rao, Sameer. “‘Breaking’ Presents: Juliana ‘Jewels’ Smith, Educator-Turned-Comic Writer.” Colorlines, 13 Apr. 2018, https://www.colorlines.com/articles/breaking-presents-juliana-jewels-smith-educator-turned-comic-writer.
https://hafrocentric.com/about/
https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=889
