S PA CE LI GH T
INDEX
Name: SHELDON, Alice Hastings Bradley
Aged: 71
Born: August 24, 1915
Where: Chicago, Illinois
Died: May 19, 1987
Where: McLean, Virginia
Married: William Davey
When: 1934 (div 1938)
Married #2: Huntington Denton Sheldon
When: 1945
Interred: _ _ _
Awarded: Hugo for "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"(1974 Novella). A Hugo & Nebula for "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" (1976 Novella). Nebulas for "Love is the Plan..."(1973 Short Story), and "The Screwfly Solution" (1977 Novelette).
"James Tiptree, Jr."
"I read my stuff with radar out for that first dead sag, the signal of oncoming boredom, the onset of crap, stuffing, meaningless filler, wrongness....how I have been bored in my life...I won't do it to anyone else."
A daughter of world exploring parents, Sheldon spent her early years in Africa and India. Alice worked as a graphic artist and painter from 1925 until 1941. WW II brought her into the US government where Alice worked at the Pentagon in photo intelligence. Discharged as a Major, a very high rank for a WW II woman, Alice married Huntington D. Sheldon and they kept shop in a rural area. Bored with that, she and Huntingdon returned to government work as operative members of the newly created Central Intelligence Agency. Two years later, Alice Sheldon left the spy life, while her husband continued, and she then taught psychology and statistics at American U. and George Washington U. between 1955 and 1968. Sheldon acquired her PhD in experimental psychology in 1967. Alice began selling SF in 1968 to Astounding, and remained a short form writer.
Apparently, Alice chose her Tiptree pen-name from the label on a jar of marmalade. (British fans will appreciate that more than American, as Tiptree products come from the UK.)
Four collections contain most of Tiptree's best stories: Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home (1973), Warm Worlds, and Otherwise (1975), Star Songs of An Old Primate (1978), and Out of the Everywhere, and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981). Several new anthologies occurred immediately after her death and reissues appear regularly, tied or timed to the "James Tiptree, Jr. SF Awards," named in her honor.
For whatever reasons, on May 19, 1987, Alice ended the life of her blind, bedridden, 84 year old husband with a gunshot wound to the head and then took her own life in the same way. Not an easy thing to do, even for a trained professional. But it was the romantic thing to do; Alli and Ting served together, lived together, and ended together. As planned.
"I must find something greater than myself,
and give my allegiance and all my actions to that light, or perish."
Thumbnail from a larger work by Patti Perret.
PEN NAMES: Raccoona Sheldon, James Tiptree, Jr.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
ONLINE BIOGRAPHY: You want to see this.
BIOGRAPHY: Science Fiction Writers, Scribners 1982 & James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips. (St. Martin's Press, 2006)
OBITUARY: Associated Press, May 19, 1987
