James Tiptree, Jr
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James Tiptree, Jr. (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was the pen name of American science fiction author Alice Sheldon, used from 1967 to her death. She also occasionally wrote under the pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon (1974-77). Tiptree/Sheldon was most notable for breaking down the barriers between perceived "male writing" and "female writing" — it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree, Jr. was a woman.
Biography
The child of Herbert Bradley, a lawyer and naturalist, and Mary Hastings Bradley, a prolific writer of fiction and travel books, Alice travelled the world with her parents from an early age. She was a graphic artist and a painter, and an art critic for the Chicago Sun between 1941 and 1942. She was married to William Davey from 1934 to 1941.In 1942 she joined the US army and worked in the Air Intelligence division. In 1945 she married her second huband, Huntington Sheldon, and she was discharged from the military in 1946, at which time she set up a small business in partnership with her husband. The same year her first story ("The Lucky Ones") was published in The New Yorker, and credited to Alice Sheldon. In 1952 she and her husband were invited to join the CIA. She resigned in 1955 as she wished to return to college.
She studied for her bachelor of arts degree at American University (1957–59), going on to achieve a doctorate in Experimental Psychology in 1967. Her doctoral dissertation was on the responses of animals to novel stimuli in differing environments.
Unsure what to do with her new degrees and her new/old careers, Sheldon began to write science fiction. She adopted the pseudonym of James Tiptree Jr. in 1967 because "I was tired of always being the first woman in some damn profession." [[Citing sources citation needed]] The name "Tiptree" came from a jar of marmalade.
The pseudonym was successfully maintained until the late 1970s. This is partly due to the fact that though it was widely known that "Tiptree" was a psuedonym, it was generally understood that its use was intended to protect the professional reputation of an intelligence community official. Readers, editors and correspondents were permitted to assume gender, and invariably they assumed "male."
"Tiptree" never made any public appearances, but she did correspond regularly with fans and other science fiction authors through the mail. When asked for biographical details, Tiptree/Sheldon was forthcoming in everything but gender. Many of the details given above (the Air Force career, the Ph.D.) were mentioned in letters "Tiptree" wrote, and also appeared in official author biographies.
After the death of her mother in 1976, all was revealed and several prominent science fiction writers suffered some embarrassment. Robert Silverberg had written an introduction to Warm Worlds and Otherwise, arguing on the basis of selections from stories in the collection, that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman. And in an introduction to a story in one of his Dangerous Visions anthology series, Harlan Ellison opined that "[Kate] Wilhelm is the woman to beat this year, but Tiptree is the man."
The revelation of her sex had no adverse impact on people's opinions of her talent; her final Nebula Award (for "The Screwfly Solution," published under her other occasional pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon) was awarded in 1977.
Sheldon continued writing under the Tiptree pen name for another decade. On May 19, 1987, at age 71, Sheldon took the life of her 84-year-old, nearly blind husband and then took her own. (Contrary to rumor, her husband did not have Alzheimer's Disease.) They were found dead, hand in hand in bed, in their Virginia　home; the suicide note Sheldon left had been written years earlier, and saved until needed. In an interview with Charles Platt in the early 1980s Sheldon spoke of her emotional problems and previous suicide attempts. Much of her work contains dark and pessimistic elements, which in retrospect can be seen as reflective of her troubled emotions.
The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is given in her honor each year for a work of science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender; funds for the award are raised in part by bake sales.
Bibliography
Short Story Collections
- Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973)
- Warm Worlds and Otherwise (1975)
- Star Songs of an Old Primate (1978)
- Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981)
- (1985)
- The Starry Rift (1986) (linked stories)
- Tales of the Quintana Roo (1986) (linked stories)
- Crown of Stars (1988)
- Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (an omnibus collection containing many stories from previous collections) (1990)
Novels
- Up the Walls of the World (1978)
- Brightness Falls from the Air (1985)
Other Collections
- Neat Sheets: The Poetry of James Tiptree, Jr. (1996)
- Meet Me at Infinity (a collection of previously un-collected and in some cases previously un-published fiction, as well as essays and other non-fiction with much biographical information, edited by Tiptree's friend Jeffrey D. Smith) (2000)
Major Awards
- Hugo Awards: 1974 (Best Novella, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In") and 1977 (Best Novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?")
- Nebula Awards: 1973 (Short Story, "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death"), 1976 (Novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?") and 1977 (Novelette, "The Screwfly Solution")
Biography
James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B.Sheldon (2006) by Julie Phillips (St Martin's Press) ISBN 0-312-20385-3External links
- [] at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Lowry Pei. [Poor Singletons: Definitions of Humanity in the Stories of James Tiptree, Jr.]
- [Biography and resources] at Middle Tennessee State University
- [Biography site, with photos and excerpts]
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