Missing Joe Wood - African American book editor and writer

Black Issues Book Review, July, 2000 by Martha Southgate

One year ago a talented editor, erudite essayist and remarkable man disappeared into the wilderness on Mt. Rainier. A friend and colleague tallies the loss to African American letters

I met Joe Wood in 1986, when I was entertainment editor at Essence magazine. He had written some incredibly erudite, penetrating essays about James Baldwin for The Village Voice and I read them thinking, "Who is this guy? He's awfully smart." I imagined him to be a tweedy 40-year-old, steeped in Africana lore and smelling of cigar smoke. So I was surprised when a colleague called me in to meet this Joe Wood, who'd been pitching stories to the magazine and had come to have lunch with her. He turned out to be a handsome, brownskinned 22-year-old with dreadlocks and a sweet smile. "He's just a baby," I thought. But he wasn't. He was a truly remarkable man.

Last summer's Unity Conference for Journalists of Color took Joseph L. Wood, Jr. to Seattle. He disappeared on July 8, 1999, while birdwatching on nearby Mt. Rainier. He is presumed dead at this point. Not a day goes by in which I don't think of him and miss him. I wanted to share my outrage about the Diallo verdict with him. I wanted to take him to the screening of Erin Brockovich that I attended (he would have hated it). I want him to see my 5-year-old son, his godson, growing to become the extraordinary person he is. I want to read the book, Blood in the Water, that he worked so hard on but did not complete before his death. He was terribly superstitious about it and so all I know is that it was a meticulously researched history of his family's roots in the South. I know it would have been good: revealing, penetrating, unforgiving in its examination of race and all its discontents, because that's how he was.

One of the most frustrating things about Joe's death at the age of 34 is the loss of all that he was going to be as well as all that he was. He had already edited one stellar anthology, Malcolm X: In Our Own Image, and in his work as an editor at The New Press (one of only two black male editors working at a major New York publishing house), he had acquired and edited such important works as The Race to Incarcerate, about America's crazed prison system. He'd also written reams of dazzling essays and reportage for publications like The Village Voice, The New York Times Magazine, Vibe and Transition. His own book and his work at the New Press were on the verge of taking him to the next level in terms of influence and cultural importance. We have all been robbed by not getting to see the fruits of his labors.

But work aside, cultural importance aside, Joe was my friend for 14 years. He was at my wedding. He was at my family's table last Easter, raving about how great the movie The Matrix was. He was the first person besides my husband and hospital personnel to meet my son, Nate. He took care of him the day my daughter Ruby was born and was the first person to meet her as well. When I was in labor and called to ask him to pick up Nate, he heard the anxiety in my voice. He laughed a little and said, "Don't worry. We can do this." And I was comforted. I wish he were here now to comfort me with this loss. I wish the world could fully appreciate what has been lost with the early end of his life. He is missed. He should be missed. We've all lost something here.

A Strong Influence

These are few important recent titles the late New Press editor Joe Wood guided to completion.

Class Notes: Posing as Politics and Other Thoughts on the American Scene

by Adolph Reed, Jr. The New Press, May 2000, $25.00 ISBN 1-565-84484-3

The Monkey Suit: Short Fiction on African Americans and Justice

by David Dante Troutt The New Press, April 1999, $14.95 ISBN 1-565-84524-2

Race to Incarcerate

by Marc Mauer with The Sentencing Project The New Press, August 1999, $22.95 ISBN 1-565-84429-7

Martha Southgate is the author of Another Way to Dance, which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for best first novel for young adults in 1996. Her new novel, The Fall of Rome, will be published by Scribners in 2001. She has written for Essence, The New York Times Magazine, Premiere, and the Village Voice, among others. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children. Her tribute to Joe Wood, a young, influential editor lost in the prime of his life, is on page 14.