As James Tiptree, Jr., Alice Sheldon wrote many of the best science fiction stories to appear in the 1970s and 1980s, winning all the major awards the field had to offer. The poetry in this volume dates from an earlier period, written in the late 1940s and early 1950s (around the same time as her first article, "The Lucky Ones," appeared in the New Yorker). Emotional and full of vigor, Neat Sheets: The Poetry of James Tiptree, Jr. is a must for Tiptree lovers, shedding new light on one of science fiction's most enigmatic personalities and one of its greatest writers.

"The one thing in the world I wanted was something I'd done solo, all by myself, unhelped...on my own. I didn't believe I could, I was almost too frightened to try. So can you see why I wanted those stories to flutter over the transom and into the slushpile all on their own, without a nod or a smile from any living soul? Without even a person behind them - in those days I still had a bit of physical charm left, and I'd learned the hundred ways in which the destiny of a pretty woman differs from a plain one-sad but true. (And that applies to men too, god help them)."
-Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.) from an interview in Locus

In 2007, the biography James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon" by Julie Phillips won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was rave-reviewed by the New York Times Book Review, Salon, Entertainment Weekly, and more. The biography also won a special recognition 2006 Tiptree Award.