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RUSS, Joanna

Born 22 February 1937, Bronx, New York

Daughter of Evarett I. and Bertha Zinner Russ

Joanna Russ, whose parents were teachers, spent half her childhood "in the Bronx Zoo and half in the Botanical Gardens." A gifted student, Russ went to Cornell University and received a B.A. in English in 1957. She later attended Yale University School of Drama, from which she received an M.F.A. in playwriting and dramatic literature in 1960. Since her graduation, Russ has worked as a lecturer at Queensborough Community College (1960-67); an instructor (1967-70) and assistant professor (1970-72) of English at Cornell University; assistant professor of English at State University of New York at Binghamton (1972-79); and professor of English at the University of Washington at Seattle until 1990.

Although she is best known as a writer of science fiction, over half of Russ' output has been outside the genre. She has written a mainstream lesbian novel, On Strike Against God (1980), and Kittatinny: A Tale of Magic (1978), a children's fantasy story. Her output in the nonfiction arena has been prodigious as well, beginning in 1967 when she cowrote Paranoia and Science Fiction with fellow writers Alexei Panshin and James Blish. She followed with How to Suppress Women's Writing (1983), a witty indictment of the male-centered publishing and academic establishments; Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans and Perverts: Feminist Essays (1985), a collection of feminist essays; To Write Like a Woman (1995); The Country You Have Never Seen: Science Fiction Reviews and Essays (1997); and What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism (1997). She won the Science Fiction Research Association's Pilgrim award in 1988 for her significant contributions to the study of science fiction. Russ also anonymously edited the anthology Woman Space: Future and Fantasy Stories and Art by Women (1981). Her nonfiction essays and critical papers, mostly on aspects of feminism and science fiction, have appeared in various places like Science-Fiction Studies, the Village Voice, Sojourner, Ms., and Chrysalis

"Nor Custom Stale," Russ' first science fiction story, was published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959, a magazine to which she also occasionally contributed book reviews. Since then her stories have appeared in a variety of periodicals, including Orbit, Epoch, Quark, Cimarron Review, and Galaxy. Other notable short stories include "Daddy's Girl" (1975), which revisits feminist themes Russ uses in her novels, and "The Autobiography of My Mother" (1975). Her short fiction has been collected in Alyx (1976; republished as The Adventures of Alyx 1983); The Zanzibar Cat (1983); Extra (Ordinary) People (1984), an interlocking series of meta science fiction tales; and The Hidden Side of the Moon: Stories (1987).

Russ' most famous story, "When It Changed" (1972), appeared first in the seminal anthology Again, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison. The overtly feminist story, which won the Nebula award that year, describes the planet Whileaway, a planet with no men on it since a plague killed them all six centuries earlier. The women lead happy, independent, and fulfilled lives—having evolved a new system of government, fair methods of distributing work and wealth, and a method of reproduction involving the merging of two ova and resulting in girl children with a mixture of genes from both mothers—until men from Earth rediscover them. After learning about the plague, the men extend their sympathy to the women for having lived so long without them. They take no notice of the women's happiness or accomplishments. For Janet, the narrator, the moment is poignant. Her life and work are devalued, and her lifelong and loving marriage is demeaned. At the downbeat ending, Janet realizes that all that is precious to her and to the other women of Whileaway will be destroyed, and she laments that the coming of men will cheat all women's daughters of "their full humanity," their freedom is at an end, and their accomplishments will again be made subordinate to masculine power.

Russ' first novel, Picnic on Paradise (1968), which makes up the lion's share of Alyx, is a tale depicting a time-traveling female mercenary of the same name. Critic John Clute notes the author's use of Alyx "in situations where she acts as a fully responsible agent, vigorously engaged in the circumstances surrounding her, but without any finger-pointing on the author's part to the effect that one should only pretend not to notice that she is not a man," has created a "liberating effect that has been pervasive" in the genre, and "the ease with which later writers now use active female protagonists in adventure roles, without having to argue the case, owes much to this example."

Russ studied with Vladmir Nabokov while at Cornell, and her science fiction reveals his influence. She is a fine stylist who does not hesitate to use experimental techniques or deal with themes like feminism and homosexuality that were ignored in science fiction for the most part until she began to write. And Chaos Died (1970) features a homosexual hero and a utopian telepathic society.

The Female Man (1975), admired by most women and dismissed by many male readers, is a funny, angry, intelligent, and visionary novel about women's fantasies of power. Four women—each a version of the same person—come from four different worlds and tell their interlocking stories. There is a Janet from Whileaway, and Jannine, who lives on a kind of 1950s Earth where World War II never happened and the Depression continues. The narrator is Joanna, whose world is much like our Earth. The fourth woman is Jael, from a possible futuristic Earth on which men and women are openly at war. She has been genetically altered to deal with warfare and has, among other qualities, ten retractable claws. Janet's world on Whileaway is contrasted to the other three worlds, and the contrast results in an undercurrent of rage at how women have been devalued. The action provides women with a kind of revenge: Janet calmly breaks the arm of an obnoxious man at a cocktail party; Jael kills a man during the war on her world; and Joanna belittles the belittling critics and turns into the female man. It is iconoclastic, surrealistic, funny, and angry, and took quite some time to find a publisher.

We Who Are About To… (1977) is a much darker novel. In it, the survivors of a wrecked spaceship are murdered one by one by a bitter and rebellious woman who refuses to go along with their survivalist attempt to establish a colony. The Two of Them (1978), in which two time-traveling agents rescue a young woman poet (who was raised on a planet whose religion is reminiscent of Islam) from the repressive male-dominated world, is more optimistic, as is Extra (Ordinary) People.

Russ' strong lesbian/feminist stance has often caused her to be described as "controversial," "radical," and "the least comfortable author writing SF," and she has not always found it easy to get her work published. However, in addition to the Nebula in 1972, Russ has also received a Hugo award in 1983 for her novella Souls, which first appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction before appearing in chapbook form in 1989. She is a significant writer because she brings to science fiction truly innovative themes, perceptions, and subjects, such as her innovative and thoughtful looks at childbirth and mothering. Many of her works have a visionary quality, especially those that postulate worlds in which the exceptional woman is no exception. Russ has brought a freshness, intensity, and rigor to science fiction and is an influential writer whose example has encouraged other women to explore science fiction and fantasy as venues for serious writing about hitherto taboo themes, and has become a rallying point for younger feminists.