Tiptree – No-One Else’s Damn Secret But My Own – A play performed and written by Jenny Rowe

James Tiptree Jr. was known as a CIA official, an international traveller and an “ineluctably masculine” writer of science fiction. But in 1976, he was ‘outed’ as Alice B Sheldon, a 61-year-old woman from Virginia who had to face the repercussions to her life and career.

A life full of boundary-breaking, brilliance and experimentation, she struggled with depression, gender barriers and sexuality; some found her frustrating and difficult, but many more loved her. She became great friends with other eminent writers, including – Ursula K LeGuin, Frederick Pohl, Anne McCaffrey and Joanna Russ.

She won the Hugo, Nebula, Jupiter and World Fantasy Awards and had an award named after her – the James Tiptree Jr. Award (now called ‘Otherwise’) – for works of fiction that explore gender.

Playwright Jen Rowe grew up in the jam-making village of Tiptree. She was bemused to find an American writer of the same name, and delighted to find ‘he’ wrote Sci-Fi. Her one woman play ‘No-One Else’s Damn Secret But My Own’ is a culmination of 6-years research and a visit to Alice Sheldon’s Chicago childhood home.

‘In writing about Tiptree, Rowe writes with wit about suffering, empathy, gender and desire… Whatever you think you know about this important, fascinating woman, you won’t have experienced her story as directly or tenderly as in this play.

‘Engaging, affective and intimate, this one-woman show brings all of Alice into the limelight, not just James.’  Fringereview