Shelley Jackson (born 1963) is an American writer and artist known for her cross-genre experimental works. These include her hyperfiction ''

Patchwork Girl The Patchwork Girl (a.k.a. Scraps) is a character from the fantasy Oz Book series by L. Frank Baum. She first appeared in ''The Patchwork Girl of Oz''. History Scraps is a teenaged (possibly fourteen) living rag doll made of patchwork, butto ...

'' (1995) and her first novel, ''

Half Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...

'' (2006).

Biography

In her own words: "Shelley Jackson was extracted from the bum leg of a water buffalo in 1963 in the Philippines and grew up complaining in Berkeley, California." Here, 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.
"A Conversation with Shelley Jackson"
''Bold Type'' 5.12, May 2002. Retrieved 2007-08-01. She graduated from Berkeley High School, and received a B.A. in art from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and an M.F.A. in creative writing from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. She is self-described as a "student in the art of digression". While at Brown, Jackson was taught by

electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. A work of electronic literature can be defined as "a constr ...

advocates

Robert Coover Robert Lowell Coover (born February 4, 1932) is an American novelist, short story writer, and T.B. Stowell Professor Emeritus in Literary Arts at Brown University. He is generally considered a writer of fabulation and metafiction. Background C ...

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 Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...

novel, ''

''."Stitch Bitch: The Hypertext Author As Cyborg-Femme Narrator"
''

Mark Amerika Mark Amerika (born 1960, Miami, Florida) is an American artist, theorist, novelist and professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado. He is a graduate of the Literary Arts program at Brown University, where he received his MFA in ...

''. March 15, 1998. Retrieved 2007-08-01. Jackson later said that she never considered publishing ''Patchwork Girl'' as a print novel, explaining, A nonchronological reworking of

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel ''Frankenstein, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an History of scie ...

's ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

'', ''Patchwork Girl'' was published by

Eastgate Systems Eastgate Systems is a publisher and software company headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts, which publishes hypertext. Eastgate is a pioneer in hypertext publishing and electronic literature and one of the best known publishers of hypertext ...

in 1995 to acclaim;D'Erasmo, Stacey.
"My Sister and Me"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', August 13, 2006. Retrieved 2007-08-01. it became Eastgate's best-selling CD-ROM title and is now considered a groundbreaking work of

hypertext fiction Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text ...

. "Patchwork Girl" uses tissue and scars as well as the body and the skeleton as metaphors for the juxtaposition of lexia and link. While working in a

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

bookstore, Jackson published two more hypertexts, the

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

''My Body'' (1997), and ''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 ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'' 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 " metimes 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." During this period, Jackson also did cover and interior illustrations for two short story collections by

Kelly Link Kelly Link (born July 19, 1969) is an American editor and author of short stories. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of sci ...

, ''Stranger Things Happen'' (2001) and '' Magic for Beginners'' (2005). She also illustrated her own children's books, ''The Old Woman and the Wave'' (1998) and ''Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog'' (2002). She published her first short story collection, ''

The Melancholy of Anatomy ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', in 2002. In 2003 she launched the ''Skin Project'', which she described as a "mortal work of art": a

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

published exclusively in the form of tattoos on the skin of volunteers, one word at a time. Only those participating in the project were permitted to read the entire narrative. Jackson's first novel, ''Half Life'', was published by HarperCollins in 2006. The story of a disenchanted

conjoined twin Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence ...

named Nora Olney who plots to have her other twin murdered, ''Half Life'' suggests an

alternate history Alternate history (also alternative history, althist, AH) is a genre of speculative fiction of stories in which one or more historical events occur and are resolved differently than in real life. As conjecture based upon historical fact, altern ...

in which the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

resulted in a genetic preponderance of conjoined twins, who eventually become a minority subculture. The novel received mixed-to-positive reviews; ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'' called it "brilliant and funny," and ''

'', while praising Jackson's ambition as "truly glorious," added that "All this razzle-dazzle, all the allusions, ndthe narrative loop-de-loops eta bit busy." ''Half Life'' went on to win the 2006 James Tiptree, Jr. Award for

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

."Shelley Jackson"
Science Fiction Awards Database (''sfadb.com''). Mark R. Kelly and the

Locus Science Fiction Foundation ''Locus: The Magazine of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field'', founded in 1968, is an American magazine published monthly in Oakland, California. It is the news organ and trade journal for the English-language science fiction and fantasy fields ...

. Retrieved 2013-11-22. In 1987, Jackson married the writer

Jonathan Lethem Jonathan Allen Lethem (; born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, ''Gun, with Occasional Music'', a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was publishe ...

; they divorced in 1998.Edemariam, Aida.
"The borrower"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', June 2, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-01. She currently teaches part time in the graduate writing program at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

in New York City and at the

European Graduate School The European Graduate School (EGS) is a private graduate school that operates in two locations: Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and Valletta, Malta. History It was founded in 1994 in Saas-Fee, Switzerland by the Swiss scientist, artist, and therapist, Pao ...

Saas-Fee Saas-Fee () is the main village in the Saastal, or the Saas Valley, and is a municipality in the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. The village is situated on a high mountain plateau at 1,800 meters (5,900 feet), surrounded ...

Works

Hypertexts

* ''

'' (1995) * ''My Body'' (1997) * ''The Doll Games'' (with Pamela Jackson, 2001)

Books

* Illustrated by Jackson * * Shelley Jackson (2001). ''Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog''. Children's book * * * *

Other projects

* ''Skin'' (begun 2003) * Musée Mécanique, a Web Exclusive * The Putti * Wrestlemania * Hagfish, Worm, Kakapo
Stitching Together Narrative, Sexuality, Self: Shelley Jackson's ''Patchwork Girl''
A Review of ''Patchwork Girl'' by George Landow * ''SNOW'' (begun 2014) * A Field Guide to Shelley Jacksons ''(An Aid to Identification)''

References

External links

*
Written On (and Under) the Skin.
An interview with Shelley Jackson by Rosita Nunes.
Shelley Jackson: The Writer Whose Medium Is Reality from The Quarterly Conversation by William Patrick Wend
Shelley Jackson: The Writer Whose Medium Is Reality from The Quarterly Conversation by William Patrick Wend
How to Unread Shelley Jackson?
by Stéphane Vanderhaeghe

by Stéphane Vanderhaeghe * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Shelley 1963 births Living people 20th-century American novelists Berkeley High School (Berkeley, California) alumni Stanford University alumni Brown University alumni European Graduate School faculty Electronic literature writers Postmodern writers 21st-century American novelists Date of birth missing (living people) American women novelists American expatriates in Switzerland 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers American women academics