From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Born in Lexington, KY, Gayl A. Jones is a noted author. In the 1970s she published the novels Corregidora, Eva's Man, and a book of short stories, White Rat, from 1975-1977. She is also a poet. Her book, The Unicorn Woman, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2025.

Jones was a faculty member at the University of Michigan. She left the school in 1984 and lived for a while in Europe. She published The Healing in 1998, the year of her husband's suicide after their return to the U.S.; they had settled in Lexington.

Gayl Jones is the daughter of Franklin and Lucille Watson Jones. She graduated from Henry Clay High School in Lexington, then earned her B.A. at  Connecticut College and her M.A. and Ph. D. at Brown University.

For more see "The Saddest Story," Time Canada, vol. 151, issue 9, p. 42; The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature, edited by C. Buck; In Black and White. A guide to magazine articles, newspaper articles, and books concerning Black individuals and groups, 3rd ed., edited by M. M. Spradling; her entry at poets.org; her entry in World Authors 1990-1995, by C. Thompson; and Gayle Jones in the Kentucky Center Hall of Fame on the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning website.