Jess Wells
Jess Wells (born 1955) is an American author of modern realism, historical fiction and magical realism. She blogs on under-represented women in history. Wells participated in the foundational years of lesbian and feminist publishing[1][2] during the time of second-wave feminism in the 1980s and 1990s.
Early life
Wells was born in Lansing, Michigan, and raised in Jackson, Michigan, where, at 17, she had an after-school position as a reporter for the Jackson Citizen Patriot. She competed in high school debate and extemporaneous speaking and participated in local theater. Wells attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. She taught school briefly as a volunteer at a Catholic school in Harlan County, Kentucky, and was a reporter at the Lansing State Journal. Wells worked for the National Organization for Women (NOW) in Washington for a summer while considering a career in the law, but after graduating college early, she left the U.S. to tour Europe alone. She settled in squats in London to write, where she had a relationship with the comic Kevin McAleer and lived with him in Barcelona and Dublin, before moving to be a short-order cook in Amsterdam. After more than three years in Europe, she returned to the United States in 1979, settling in San Francisco, California.
Career
Wells participated in the foundational years of lesbian[3] and feminist publishing[4] during the time of second-wave feminism in the 1980 and 1990s beginning with an article in Spare Rib magazine on the history of prostitution, which she subsequently published as a book with Shameless Hussy Press in 1982 as A Herstory (sic) of Prostitution in Western Europe. She self-published her short stories under the name of Library B Books until selling her novels to small press publishers.
Her short stories have appeared in more than four dozen anthologies[5] and journals, including those from the University of Wisconsin Press, Alyson Books, Firebrand Books, Arsenal Pulp Press, Simon & Schuster, Papier Mache Press, Harrington Park Press, Wising Up Press New Millennium Writings, Owen Wister Review and Chronicle Books. She is included in the Encyclopedia of Sci-Fi Writers as well as Lesbian Culture: An Anthology and All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America.[6]
Wells edited several anthologies including Lesbians Raising Sons (Alyson Publications, 1997), and HomeFronts: Controversies in the Non-traditional Parenting Community (Alyson Books, 2000), addressing the stereotypes and social pressure on lesbian and gay families[7][8][9], both of which were finalists for the Lambda Literary Award. She also edited several volumes of lesbian erotica, as well as producing her own volume of lesbian erotica, The Price of Passion (Firebrand Books,1999).
In 2007, Wells produced her first piece of historical fiction, The Mandrake Broom[10], (Firebrand Books, 2007) which dramatizes the fight to save medical knowledge during the witch-burning times in Europe 1465-1540. This novel imagines a group of women carrying the work of Trotula to midwives and healers throughout Europe and includes as characters the authors of the Malleus Maleficarum and the scientist Paracelsus.
A Slender Tether[11], (Fireship Press, 2013) imagines the early years of Christine de Pizan, an intellectual of the Middle Ages and arguably Europe’s first feminist. It is a novel in three linked stories and ponders questions of ambition, disillusionment, and identity.
Straight Uphill: A Tale of Love and Chocolate (Cortero/Fireship Press, 2020), imagines five generations of women chocolatiers in a small Italian village, including their travails in WWI and WWII.
Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar (Mirador Publishing, 2021) is a volume of magical realism[12] set in a southern jungle, where a woman who effects the weather and her friend with extraordinary beauty establish a trading post for cast-off women and the dispossessed.
Awards and recognition
- 2022: Silver Medal Nautilus Prize for Small Press Fiction
- 2020: Bronze Winner for Adult Fiction/Romance for Foreword Reviews INDIES Award
- 2009: Saints and Sinners Literary Festival Hall of Fame
- 2008: Finalist for Lambda Literary Award in Women’s Fiction for The Mandrake Broom
- 2007: San Francisco Arts Commission Grant for Literature
- 2001: Finalist for Lambda Literary Award for Love Shook My Heart II
- 2000: Finalist for Lambda Literary Award for Home Fronts: Controversies in the Non-Traditional Parenting Community
- 1997: Finalist for Lambda Literary Award for Lesbians Raising Sons
- 1986: Excellence in Journalism, Lebhar-Friedman Publishing
Personal life
Wells, bisexual, was involved with women for 23 years, becoming a single-mother-by-choice via donor insemination. Her son was born in 1994. She worked in Silicon Valley in marketing to support her family, has lived in San Francisco since 1979 and is now married to a man who is a singer-songwriter (name withheld).
Selected bibliography
- Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar[13], (Mirador Publishing, September 2021)
- Straight Uphill: A Tale of Love and Chocolate[14], (Cortero/Fireship Press, February 2020)
- The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake[15] (Audio book of short stories, Library B Books, June 2017)
- A Slender Tether[16], (Fireship Press, 2013)
- The Mandrake Broom[17], (Firebrand Books, 2007), finalist for Lambda Literary Award in Women’s Fiction, 2008
- The Price of Passion[18] (Firebrand Books, 1999)
- AfterShocks[19], British edition (The Women's Press, London, 1993)
- AfterShocks[20][21], (Third Side Press, 1992)
- Two Willow Chairs[22] (Library B Books – self-published, 1987)
- The Dress/The Sharda Stories[23] (reprint Library B Books, 1986)
- The Dress, The Cry and a Shirt with No Seams[24], (Library B Books, 1984)
- The Sharda Stories[25], (Library B Books, 1982)
- A Herstory of Prostitution in Western Europe[26], (Shameless Hussy Press, 1982)
- Run[27], (Library B Books, 1981)
References
- ↑ Penelope, Julia; Wolfe, Susan J. (1993). Lesbian Culture: An Nnthology. Crossing Press. ISBN 0-89594-592-4. OCLC 756896235. Search this book on
[page needed]
- ↑ Knight, Pollack, ed. (1993). Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Greenwood Press. Search this book on [page needed]
- ↑ Lynch, Lee (1992). "Jess Wells Writes Against the Odds". The Washington Blade.[full citation needed]
- ↑ Nelson, Emmanuel S. (2009). Encyclopedia of contemporary LGBTQ literature of the United States. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-34859-4. OCLC 316146186. Search this book on [page needed]
- ↑ Zahava, Irene, ed. (1994). Lavender Mansions: 40 Contemporary Lesbian and Gay Short Stories. San Francisco: Westview Press. Search this book on [page needed]
- ↑ Porfido, Giovanni (October 2008). "Book Review: Suzanna Danuta Walters, All the Rage. The Story of Gay Visibility in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2001. 338 pp. ISBN 0-226-87231-9. $19.00". Sexualities. 11 (5): 651–653. doi:10.1177/13634607080110050606. ISSN 1363-4607.
- ↑ Rizzo, Schweig, Schneiderman (1995) All the Ways Home: Parenting and Children in the Lesbian and Gay Community[full citation needed]
- ↑ O'Reilly, Andrea (2004). From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-6287-4. OCLC 897112574. Search this book on
- ↑ O’Reilly, Andrea (2021-04-01). Matricentric Feminism. Demeter Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1k2j331. ISBN 978-1-77258-380-9. Search this book on
- ↑ "The Mandrake Broom". Historical Novel Review (41). August 2007.[page needed]
- ↑ "A Slender Tether". Historical Novel Review (68). May 2014.[page needed]
- ↑ Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (1999). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Orbit. ISBN 1-85723-897-4. OCLC 893344955. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (2021). Jaguar Paloma and the Caketown Bar. [S.l.]: Mirador Publishing. ISBN 1-914965-00-0. OCLC 1264710867. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (2020). Straight Uphill: A Tale of Love and Chocolate. Tucson, Arizona. ISBN 978-1-61179-394-9. OCLC 1182633691. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (2017). The Disappearing Andersons of Loon Lake. San Francisco: Library B Books. ISBN 9781513620503. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (2013). A Slender Tether. Tucson, Arizona: Fireship Press. ISBN 9871611792614 Check
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- ↑ Wells, Jess (2007). The Mandrake Broom. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Firebrand Books. ISBN 9781370826148. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1999). The Price of Passion. Ithaca, New York: Firebrand Books. ISBN 1563411121. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1993). AfterShocks. London: The Women's Press. ISBN 0704343835. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (2002). AfterShocks, re-issued as a Triangle Classic. New York: InsightOutBooks. ISBN 0965367789. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1992). AfterShocks. Chicago: Third Side Press. ISBN 18794270807 Check
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- ↑ Wells, Jess (1987). Two Willow Chairs. San Francisco: Library B Books. ISBN 0940721015. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1986). The Dress/The Sharda Stories. San Francisco: Library B Books. ISBN 0940721007. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1984). The Dress, The Cry and a Shirt with No Seams. San Francisco: Library B Books. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1982). The Sharda Stories. San Francisco: Library B Books. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1982). A Herstory of Prostitution in Western Europe. Berkeley, California: Shameless Hussy Press. ISBN 0915288486. Search this book on
- ↑ Wells, Jess (1981). Run. San Francisco: Library B Books. Search this book on
External links
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