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

hyperfiction 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 t ...

'' Patchwork Girl'' (1995) and her first novel, '' Half Life'' (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 and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Brown University. She is self-described as a "student in the art of digression". While at Brown, Jackson was taught by electronic literature 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. Backgroun ...

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 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 typicall ...

novel, '' Patchwork Girl''."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 ...

''. 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 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...

'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 exp ...

'', ''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 f ...

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. "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 state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

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 p ...

''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, Phi ...

'' and ''

Conjunctions Conjunction may refer to: * Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech * Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator ** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic * Conjunction (astronomy) In astronomy, a conjunction occ ...

'') 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, ''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'', 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) fact ...

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 named Nora Olney who plots to have her other twin murdered, ''Half Life'' suggests an alternate history 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, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'' 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 The Otherwise Award, formerly known as the James Tiptree Jr. Award, is an American annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February 1991 by science f ...

for

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

and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving 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 literature and drama ...

."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 fiel ...

. 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 publi ...

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

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', 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 in

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), surrounde ...

Works

Hypertexts

* '' Patchwork Girl'' (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