American author of historical and magical realism fiction
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.
Career
Wells participated in the foundational years of lesbian and feminist publishing 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.[citation needed]
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,[6][7][8] 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,[9] (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,[10] (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[11](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[13]
2020: Bronze Winner for Adult Fiction/Romance for Foreword Reviews INDIES Award[14]
^Zahava, Irene, ed. (1994). Lavender Mansions: 40 Contemporary Lesbian and Gay Short Stories. San Francisco: Westview Press. pp. 294–297.
ISBN0-8133-2031-3.
^All the Ways Home: Parenting and Children in the Lesbian and Gay Communities. New Victoria Publishers. 1995. pp. 128–133.
ISBN0-934678-65-0.
^O'Reilly, Andrea (2004). From Motherhood to Mothering: The Legacy of Adrienne Rich's Of Woman Born. State University of New York Press.
ISBN978-0-7914-6287-4.
OCLC897112574.