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.

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. 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.