Joanna Russ

Joanna Russ (born 22 February 1937), American writer, pioneer of feminist science fiction, essayist.

Biography

Grew up in the Bronx. Born to Bertha Zinner and Evarett I. Russ. BA with High Honors in English from Cornell University (1957); MFA from Yale University School of Drama (1960). Came out in 1969. Taught at Cornell, SUNY Binghamton, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Washington (Seattle).

First published in 1959.

Bibliography

Novels

• Picnic on Paradise (1968)
• And Chaos Died (1970)
• The Female Man (1975)
• We Who Are About To... (1977)
• Kittatinny: A Tale of Magic (1978)
• The Two of Them (1978)
• On Strike Against God (1980) (non-SF)

Collections

• The Adventures of Alyx (1976; 1986)
• The Zanzibar Cat (1983)
• Extra(Ordinary) People (1985)
• The Hidden Side of the Moon (1987)

Nonfiction

Collections and book-length essays

• How to Suppress Women's Writing (1983)
• Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts: Feminist Essays (1985)
• To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction (1995)
• What Are We Fighting For? Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism (1998)
• The Country You Have Never Seen (forthcoming, in 2007?)

Individual and shorter titles

• "The Image of Women in Science Fiction" (1971)
• "What Can a Heroine Do? or Why Women Can't Write"
• "Images of Women"
• "Amor Vincit Foeminam"

Notable short fiction

• "The Autobiography of My Mother" (1991) (first appeared in Ms. v.1, May/June 1991, pp. 54-60.
• "Corruption" (1976) in Vonda McIntyre's Aurora: Beyond Equality.
• "A Few Things I Know About Whileaway" in The Norton Book of Science Fiction (incorporated into The Female Man)
• "The Little Dirty Girl" in The Armless Maiden (1995).
• "The Man Who Could Not See Devils." (1970; reprinted in Those Who Can: A Science Fiction Reader edited by Robin Scott Wilson (1973)
• "Russalka or The Seacoast of Bohemia" (1978) in Jack Zipes' Don't Bet on the Prince, (1987).
• "The Second Inquisition" (1969) in Pamela Sargent's More Women of Wonder.
• "Souls" (1982)
• "Useful Phrases for the Tourist" in Damon Broderick's Not the Only Planet: Science Fiction Travel Stories (1998)
• "When It Changed" (written 1969; published 1972 in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, 1985; and in The Zanzibar Cat, 1983; also revised & incorporated into The Female Man)
• "The Zanzibar Cat" (1971)

Interviews

• Interviewed by Samuel R. Delany at WisCon 30 (2006)
• Interview in Larry McCaffery, ed., Across the Wounded Galaxies: Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers. (1990).

References & further reading

• Jane L. Donawerth entry in glbtq
• Demand My Writing: Joanna Russ / Feminism / Science Fiction by Jeanne Cortiel (1999)
• Jeanne Cortiel, "Determinate Politics of Indeterminacy: Reading Joanna Russ's Recent Work in Light of Her Early Short Fiction." Future Females, the Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism. Eds. Marleen S. Barr, et al. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 219-36. ISBN 0-8476-9126-8
• Samuel R. Delany, "Orders of Chaos: The Science Fiction of Joanna Russ." Women Worldwalkers: New Dimensions of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Jane B. Weedman. Lubbock: Texas Tech P, 1985. 95-123.
• Marilyn Hacker, "Science Fiction and Feminism: The Work of Joanna Russ." Chrysalis 4 (1977): 67-79.
• Marilyn J. Holt, "Joanna Russ, 1937." Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day. Ed. Everett Franklin Bleiler. New York: Scribner's, 1982. 483-90.
• Richard G. Law, "Joanna Russ and The "Literature of Exhaustion"." Extrapolation 25 (1984): 146-56.
• Carl Malmgren, "Meta-SF: The Examples of Dick, Leguin, and Russ." Extrapolation: A Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy 43.1 (2002): 22.
• On Joanna Russ ed. Farah Mendlesohn

• Guide to the Joanna Russ Papers, 1968-1989 (University of Oregon). Joanna Russ Papers, Coll. 261, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, Or.