
The Secret Sci-Fi Life of Alice B. Sheldon (2006) - onuralp
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6468136
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eesmith
Quoting the link: In 1975, in an introduction to a book of Tiptree's short
stories, Robert Silverberg wrote of his friend, "It has been suggested that
Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something
ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writing."

That is from "Warm World and Otherwise". I have the second printing, from
1979, which is after SF learned that Tiptree is a woman.

One of the ways I learned about how views on "masculinity" and "femininity"
have changed was to read Silverberg's commentary about the apparently
widespread question of "is Tiptree a man or women?", and concluding there is
"something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writing".

Then because I have the _second_ printing, I also saw Silverberg's followup:

> "She ... called into question the entire notion of what is "masculine" or
> "feminine" in fiction. I am still wrestling with that. What I have learned
> is that there are some women who can write about traditionally male topics
> more knowledgeably than most men...."

This was one of my first steps in learning that 'the entire notion of what is
"masculine" or "feminine"' is not the clear binary distinction that I had been
brought up with.

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pmoriarty
Another scifi author with a "secret life" used the pseudonym Cordwainer Smith.
He was actually Paul Linebarger, a military expert in psychological warfare,
close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek, CIA agent, and advisor to JFK.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordwainer_Smith)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...and he wrote astonishing stories about the remaking of man, after thousands
of years of technology and emotional reworking. And never failed to put in fan
service remarks about ancient heroes and villains that were characters in
previous books. His entire works are collected in 'Rediscovery of Man'.

------
Jun8
Tiptree’s selected letters to various intellectuals of her time, including Le
Guin, were published in 2015, it’s great. It’s a pity that she’s not known
more widely, especially in these times.

Her story [http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/love-is-the-
plan-t...](http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/love-is-the-plan-the-
plan-is-death/) is one of the most moving stories I’ve read, SF or otherwise.
“The Women Men Don’t See” could have been written last year.

