James Tiptree, Jr., and Raccoona Sheldon, pseudonyms of Alice B. Sheldon (post 4): Allie wants to write as a woman, but hasn’t a story in her head.

In 1972, Allie wanted to do some science fiction writing as a woman, but wrote in her journal that “I” (which she puts in quotation marks) “am not a writer” and “haven’t a story in my head—all that went to J. T. Jr.”

“In the spring and summer of 1972, [a] female friend [of Tiptree] began to write stories and was given a name: Raccoona Sheldon.”

Allie “bought Raccoona a typewriter, an Olivetti with sans-serif letters and a black ribbon instead of Tip’s trademark blue. She invented a signature, a small cramped one that was very different from Tiptree’s flowing, confident hand.”

“Raccoona would go on to write two of Alli’s best stories, including the coolly gruesome tale, ‘The Screwfly Solution.’ But at first she seems compelled to sympathize with the world’s victims, of whom she is one.”

“Alli came to feel that Raccoona wasn’t taken seriously because she was a woman, and it’s possible this was true. Yet Raccoona was not the many-sided woman that Allie Sheldon was, either in her fiction or in her correspondence, nor was she as appealing as Tiptree” (1, pp. 283-286).

Thus, by 1972, there are three identified personalities: Alice “Allie” Sheldon, the host personality; James “Tip” Tiptree Jr., a male alternate personality; and Raccoona Sheldon, a female alternate personality.

The biographer has not mentioned multiple personality, per se. She calls Tip and Raccoona “personas,” not alternate personalities, but often refers to Allie, Tip, and Raccoona as though they were three people.

1. Julie Phillips. James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2006.