Juliana Jewels Smith

Juliana 'Jewels' Smith is a writer, educator, and cultural worker from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the creator of (H)afrocentric, a comic series and strip following a group of undergrads of color at the fictional Ronald Reagan University, tackling racism, gentrification, and activist culture with sharp political humor. She won the Glyph Award for Best Writer in 2016 — the first woman to win the award since the convention launched in 2002. She was also honored by the African American Library and Museum of Oakland with the first annual Excellence in Comics and Graphic Novels Award. She holds a BA in Sociology from UC Riverside and an MA in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego.