Rachel Pollack

Infobox Person
name = Rachel Pollack


image_size = 150px
caption = Author and expert on divinatory tarot| birth_date = 1945
birth_place = Brooklyn, NY
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = Author Rachel Pollack is an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot.

Tarot Reading

Her work "78 Degrees of Wisdom" on tarot reading is commonly referenced by tarot readers.cite web | title= Llewellyn | url = http://www.llewellyn.com/bookstore/author.php?id=40020&affiliate=HL5X4 | accessdate = 04-08-2008] .

She wrote "78 Degrees of Wisdom" on tarot reading, and has created her own tarot deck called "Shining Woman Tarot," (later "Shining Tribe Tarot."cite web
title = Shining Tribe Tarot
url = http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/shining-tribe/
accessdate = 2008-04-15] ) She also aided in the creation of the "Vertigo Tarot Deck", with Illustrator Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman and wrote a book specifically to accompany itcite web
title = Vertigo Tarot
url = http://www.elsewhere.org/tarot/vertigo/
accessdate = 2008-04-15] .

Comics

She is best known for her run of issues 64-87 on the comic book "Doom Patrol", on DC Comics' Vertigo imprintcite web
title = Doom Patrol
url = http://www.rachelpollack.com/writing/index.html#comics
accessdate = 2008-04-15] ., which became a cult favorite under Grant Morrison. A comic fandom legend has it that Pollack was assigned to write the series after writing persistent letters to the editorAlthough the letters are a matter of recordcitation
title = Doom Patrol
issue=62-63
author=Jim Morrison] it's unknown if they were actually the cause of her employment.During her tenure she dealt with such rarely addressed comic-book topics as menstruation, sexual identity, and transsexuality. Pollack's run ended two years later, with the book's cancellation. Pollack also wrote a "Brother Power the Geek" one-shot for DC Comics.

Fiction

Her book "The Body Of The Goddess" is an exploration of the history of the Goddess. Rachel Pollack uses the image of the Goddess in many of her works.

Her magical realismcite web | url=http://www.glbtfantasy.com/?section=fantasy&auth=Rachel+Pollack | accessdate = 09-19-2008 | title = GLBT Fantasy review of Godmother Night] novels explore worlds imbued with elements pulled from a number of traditions, faiths, and religions.

Influences

Pollack is Jewish,cite web | title = New Worlds Article | url = http://www.llewellyn.com/bookstore/article.php?id=644 | accessdate = 2008-09-06] and has frequently written about the Kabbalah, most notably in "The Kabbalah Tree". Pollack is a transsexual woman and has written frequently on transgender issues. [cite book | last = Valerio | first = Max Wolf | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male | publisher = Seal Press | date = 2006 | location = Berkeley | pages = 147 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=9XEwxy3XARgC | doi = | id = | isbn = 1-58005-173-1] [cite book | last = Israel | first = Gianna E. | authorlink = | coauthors = Tarver II, Donald E. | title = Transgender Care: Recommended Guidelines, Practical Information & Personal Accounts | publisher = Temple University Press | date = 2001 | location = Philadelphia | pages = 269 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=IlPX6E5glDEC&pg=RA1-PA269&dq=Rachel+Pollack+transsexual&sig=ACfU3U10scfZTB7yC2uFpxg9nohljO739Q | doi = | id = | isbn = 1-56639-852-5] . In "Doom Patrol" she introduced Coagula, a transsexual character. She has also written several essays on transsexualism, attacking the notion that it is a "sickness," [http://www.annelawrence.com/twr/archetypal.html] instead saying that it is a passion. She has emphasized the revelatory aspects of transsexualism, saying that "the trance-sexual woman sacrifices her social identity as a male, her personal history, and finally the very shape of her body to a knowledge, a desire, which overpowers all rational understanding and proof.

"A Secret Woman" features a police detective who is transgendered and Jewish. The detective utters the prayer 'Blessed art thou oh G-d who made me not a woman. Double blessed is Doctor Green who has'. Rachel Pollack created the characters known as 'the bandage people' for her Doom Patrol run. The bandage people are 'sexually remaindered spirits' who died in sexual accidents. The initials srs came from the medical term 'sex reassignment surgery.

Teaching

For nearly 20 years Pollack has been teaching seminars with Tarot author Mary K. Greer at the Omega Institute, in Rhinebeck, New York. She has also done seminars for several years in California in conjunction with Greer, and she co-presented a breakthrough seminar with Tarot author Johanna Gargiulo-Sherman on Tarot and psychic ability, using her own Shining Tribe Tarot and Gargulio-Sherman's Sacred Rose Tarot. Pollack is also a popular lecturer at Tarot seminars and symposiums such as LATS (Los Angeles Tarot Symposium), BATS (Bay Area Tarot Symposium), and the Readers Studio. Pollack currently teaches creative writing at Goddard College. Her most recent work is included in the anthology called "Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing" edited by Theodora Goss. Pollack has taught English at New York State University.

Published works

Books

*cite book | title = Golden Vanity | last = Pollack | First = Rachel | year = 1980cite web | title=The Shining Tribe | url = http://www.rachelpollack.com/writing/index.html | accessdate=04-15-2008]

*cite book | last = Anderson | first = Hilary | title = New Thoughts on Tarot | publisher = Newcastle Pub. Co | location = North Hollywood | year = 1989 | isbn = 0878771395 cite web | title=biblio.com| url = http://www.biblio.com/author_biographies/2045874/Rachel_Pollack.html | accessdate = 04-15-2008]

*cite book | last = Livernois | first = Jay | title = Archetypal Sex: Spring : a Journal of Archetype and Culture | publisher = Spring Publications | location = Irving | year = 1996 | isbn = 1882670051

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Collections

*cite web | title="Internet Science Fiction Data Base" | url = http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Rachel_Pollack | accessdate=04-15-2008]

Anthologies

*

hort Fiction

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* with Michael Cisco and Jeffrey Thomas and Eric G. Schaller and K. J. Bishop and Stepan Chapman and Richard Calder and R. F. Wexler

Poetry

The Wild Cows (1993)

Essays

* Introduction: A Machine For Constructing Stories (1989)
* Read This (The New York Review of Science Fiction, October 1991) (1991)
* Read This (The New York Review of Science Fiction, July 1995) (1995)
* Read This (The New York Review of Science Fiction, August 1996) (1996)

Forthcoming Books

*

Reviews

* The Book of Embraces (1991) by Eduardo Galeano
* Outside the Dog Museum (1992) by Jonathan Carroll
* Coelestis [vt Celestis] (1996) by Paul Park

Comics

*Cite comic
Writer = Rachel Pollack
Artist =
Story =
Title = Doom Patrol
Volume =
Issue = 64-87
Date = 1993-1995
Publisher = Vertigo
Page =
Panel =
ID =

*Cite comic
Writer = Rachel Pollack
Cowriters = Tom Peyer
Penciller = Luke Ross
Inker = Brian Garvey
Story =
Title = New Gods
Volume = 4
Issue = 1-11
Date = 1995-1996
Publisher = DC Comics
Page =
Panel =
ID =

*Cite comic
Writer = Rachel Pollack
Artist = Chris Weston
Story =
Title = Time Breakers
Volume =
Issue = 1-5
Date = 1995
Publisher = Helix
Page =
Panel =
ID =

*Cite comic
Writer = Rachel Pollack
Artist = Thomas Yeates
Story =
Title = Vertigo Visions: Tomahawk
Volume =
Issue = 1
Date = 1998
Publisher = Vertigo
Page =
Panel =
ID =

Degrees, Awards, Memberships

* 1997 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel winner for "Godmother Night"
* 1994 Nebula Award for Best Novel nominee for "Temporary Agency"
* 1989 Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for "Unquenchable Fire"
* Certified Tarot Grand Master (CTGM) with the Tarot Certification Board of Americacite web | title=Women In Tarot | url = http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/women_pollack.shtml ]
* Tarot Sage (TS) with the American Board For Tarot Certification
* member of the American Tarot Association (ATA)
* member of the International Tarot Society (ITS)
* member of the Tarot Guild of Australia
* member of the Tarot Association of the British Isles.
* Honours degree in English from New York University
* Masters in English from Claremont Graduate School
* Faculty, MFA in Creative Writing Program, Goddard College

References

External links

* [http://www.rachelpollack.com Official site]
*isfdb name|id=Rachel_Pollack|name=Rachel Pollack
* [http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/books/78-degrees-of-wisdom/ Reviews of 78 Degrees of Wisdom]

Persondata
NAME=Rachel Pollack
SHORT DESCRIPTION=author
DATE OF BIRTH=1947 AD
PLACE OF BIRTH=Brooklyn, NY