Shelley Jackson

Infobox Writer
name = Shelley Jackson


imagesize = 170px
caption = Jackson in 2005.
pseudonym =
birthdate = 1963 (age 44)
birthplace = The Philippines
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Novelist, artist
nationality = American
period =
genre =
subject =
movement =
influences = L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Don DeLillo, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, Mary Shelley, Laurence Sterne [Ihara, Nathan. [http://www.laweekly.com/art+books/books/sex-in-the-age-of-irony/13957/ "Sex in the Age of Irony"] , LA Weekly, 2006-07-12. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.]
influenced =
website = http://www.ineradicablestain.com/

Shelley Jackson (born 1963) is a writer and artist known for her cross-genre experiments, including her groundbreaking work of hyperfiction, "Patchwork Girl" (1995). In 2006, Jackson published her first novel, "Half Life".

Biography

Born in the Philippines, Jackson grew up in Berkeley, California, where her family ran a small women's bookstore for several years; Jackson later recalled, "I was already in love with books by then....and the family store just confirmed what I already suspected, that books were the most interesting and important things in the world. Of course I wanted to write them!"Lynch, Megan. [http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0402/jackson/interview.html "A Conversation with Shelley Jackson"] , Bold Type 5.12, May 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] She graduated from Berkeley High School, [cite web|title = "Book Review: A 'Melancholy' Body of Stories Fleshes Out Our Worst Somatic Fears"|url = http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=8496|accessdate = 2007-08-01|last = Metz|first = Rachel|archiveurl = http://web.archive.org/web/20070314020927rn_1/www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=8496|archivedate = 2007-03-14|year = 2002|month = April|work = The Daily Californian] and received a B.A. in art from Stanford University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Brown University.

While at Brown, Jackson was taught by electronic literature advocates Robert Coover and George Landow. During one of Landow's lectures in 1993, Jackson began drawing "a naked woman with dotted-line scars" in her notebook, an image she eventually expanded into her first hypertext novel, "Patchwork Girl". [http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/3/3193/1.html "Stitch Bitch: The Hypertext Author As Cyborg-Femme Narrator"] , Mark Amerika 1998-03-15. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] Jackson later said that she never considered publishing "Patchwork Girl" as a print novel, explaining,

A nonchronological reworking of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", "Patchwork Girl" was published by Eastgate Systems in 1995 to acclaim;D'Erasmo, Stacey. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/books/review/D_Erasmo.t.html?ex=1186113600&en=9ba97761e33a7fe3&ei=5070 "My Sister and Me"] , The New York Times, 2006-08-13. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] it became Eastgate's best-selling CD-ROM title and is now considered a groundbreaking work of hyperfiction. [ [http://eliterature.org/Awards2001/fiction-JacksonShelley.php Patchwork Girl] , Electronic Literature Organization, 2001. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] While working in a San Francisco, California bookstore, Jackson published two more hypertexts, the autobiographical " [http://www.altx.com/thebody/ My Body] " (1997), and " [http://www.ineradicablestain.com/dollgames/ The Doll Games] " (2001), which she wrote with her sister Pamela.

In the late nineties, Jackson alternated hypertext work with writing short stories (in publications such as "The Paris Review" and "Conjunctions") and children's books. Jackson has explained that she "completely ignored" one college professor who told her the key to success was focus, and added that " [s] ometimes this means shuttling manically between art and writing and other, more unmentionable obsessions. More and more, though, and partly because of the ease of mixing media in electronic work, I've come to see all these projects as interrelated."Lynch, Megan. [http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0402/jackson/interview.html "A Conversation with Shelley Jackson"] , Bold Type 5.12, May 2002. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] During this period, Jackson also did cover and interior illustrations for two short story collections by Kelly Link, "Stranger Things Happen" (2001) and "Magic For Beginners" (2005).

She published her first short story collection, "The Melancholy of Anatomy", in 2002. In 2003 she launched the [http://www.ineradicablestain.com/skin.html "Skin Project,"] which Jackson described as a "mortal work of art": a novella published exclusively in the form of tattoos on the skin of volunteers, one word at a time. Jackson's first novel, [http://www.ineradicablestain.com/half_life.html "Half Life"] , was released by HarperCollins in 2006. The story of a disenchanted conjoined twin named Nora Olney who plots to have her other twin murdered, "Half Life" suggests an alternate history in which the atomic bomb resulted in a genetic preponderance of conjoined twins, who eventually become a minority subculture. The novel received mixed-to-positive reviews; "Newsweek" called it "brilliant and funny," [Braiker, Brian. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14377609/site/newsweek/page/0/ "Two Times a Lady"] , Newsweek, 2006-08-16. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] and "The New York Times", while praising Jackson's ambition as "truly glorious," added that "All this razzle-dazzle, all the allusions, [and] the narrative loop-de-loops [get] a bit busy." "Half Life" went on to win the 2006 James Tiptree, Jr. Award for science fiction and fantasy.

In 1987, Jackson married the writer Jonathan Lethem; they divorced in 1998.Edemariam, Aida. [http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2093135,00.html "The borrower"] , The Guardian, 2007-06-02. Retrieved on 2007-08-01.] She currently teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School University.

Works

Hypertexts

* "Patchwork Girl" (1995)
* " [http://www.altx.com/thebody/ My Body] " (1997)
* " [http://www.ineradicablestain.com/dollgames/ The Doll Games] " (with Pamela Jackson, 2001)

Books

* "The Old Woman and The Wave" (children's book, 1998)
* "Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog" (children's book, 2001)
* "The Melancholy of Anatomy" (short story collection, 2002)
* "Half Life" (novel, 2006)

Other projects

* "Skin" (begun 2003)

References

ee also

*Electronic Literature Organization

External links

* [http://www.ineradicablestain.com Shelley Jackson's web page]
* [http://www.egs.edu/faculty/shelleyjackson.html Shelley Jackson's faculty website] at European Graduate School
* [http://www.guernicamag.com/fiction/253/the_cats_meow/ Fiction by Shelley Jackson for Guernica Magazine (guernicamag.com)]
* [http://www.tattoohighway.org/8/sjinterview.html Written On (and Under) the Skin.] An interview with Shelley Jackson by Rosita Nunes.
* [http://community.livejournal.com/mortalworkofart/ MortalWorkOfArt Blog] A LiveJournal community dedicated to participants in Shelley's Skin Project.

Persondata
NAME=Jackson, Shelley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Jackson, Pamela
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American author and artist
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DATE OF DEATH=
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