Rachel Pollack

Rachel Pollack studied at New York University and Claremont Graduate University. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is poetry, science fiction and comic. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are magic realism. Residence is recorded at Hudson Valley and Rhinebeck. Employment is recorded with State University of New York and Goddard College. Works named in the authority record are Doom Patrol. Distinctions recorded are Arthur C. Clarke Award and World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

• Name — Rachel Pollack • Born — 17 August 1945 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Education — New York University Claremont Graduate University • Died — 7 April 2023 • Place of death — Rhinebeck, New York, U.S. • Occupation — Author • Notable Works — Unquenchable Fire Doom Patrol (issues 64–87) • Style — Magical realism • Spouse — Edith Katz (m. pre 1971-1990s)

Pollack was born on August 17, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York to an Orthodox Jewish family. At age 15, she was diagnosed with cancer, which was later found out to be calcium deposits, with her seeing it as a miracle influenced by her parents' prayers. She earned an honours degree in English from New York University and a master's in English from Claremont Graduate University. After getting her master's, Pollack secured a teaching job at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh and married a woman named Edith Katz (the marriage ended by the 1990s). 1971 was a pivotal year for Pollack, who in the same year sold her first short story ("Pandora's Box"), discovered Tarot and came out as a trans woman.

After Rachel's coming out, the couple moved to London, where they became active in radical lesbian feminist scene. They also were active in the UK Gay Liberation Front, who in 1972 published the trans manifesto titled “Don’t Call Me Mister You Fucking Beast,” written by Pollack, Roz Kaveney and others. In the same year Rachel and Edith experienced "sudden" rejection from their lesbian feminist peers, whose “political ideology had shifted” to a transphobic one, causing the couple to move to Amsterdam. Pollack's later work on spirituality continued to be influenced by women’s spirituality movement and second-wave feminism. In the 1990s, Pollack helped lead the New Woman Conference (focused on post-op trans women's experiences), and became a regular contributor to TransSisters, the Journal of Transsexual Feminism.

In 1980 Pollack published 78 Degrees of Wisdom, a book on Tarot card reading that has been commonly referenced by Tarot readers. Pollack wrote the 1985 book Salvador Dali's Tarot, an exposition of Salvador Dalí's Tarot deck, comprising a full-page color plate for each card, with her commentary on the facing page. She created her own Tarot deck, Shining Woman Tarot (later Shining Tribe Tarot). She also aided in the creation of the 1995 Vertigo Tarot Deck with illustrator Dave McKean and author Neil Gaiman, and she wrote a book to accompany it. Gaiman sometimes consulted Pollack on the tarot for his stories.

Pollack wrote for the comic book Doom Patrol, on DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, from 1993 to 1995. Her run of issues (64–87) was a continuation of a 1960s comic which had recently become a cult favorite under Grant Morrison. Pollack took over the series in 1993 after meeting editor Tom Peyer at a party, telling him it was the only monthly comic book she would want to write at the time, and sending him a sample script. Towards the end of Morrison's run, Pollack began writing monthly "letters to the editor" in what she describes as a "gee-whiz fangirl" voice asking to take over the book when Morrison was finished. In the final letter, she claims that she had already told her mother that she had been given the job. Peyer then used that response to that letter to officially announce that Pollack was, in fact, taking over the book. During her tenure, Pollack dealt with such rarely addressed comic book topics as menstruation, sexual identity, and transgender issues. Her run ended two years later, with the book's cancellation. In addition to Doom Patrol, Pollack wrote issues of the Vertigo Visions anthology featuring Brother Power the Geek (1993) and Tomahawk (1998), the first 11 issues of the fourth volume of New Gods (1995), and the five-issue limited series Time Breakers (1996) for the short lived Helix imprint. In 2019, it was announced that Pollack was reuniting with Doom Patrol artist Richard Case and letterer John Workman to create a short story—titled "Snake Song"—for the Kickstarter funded "music-themed horror anthology" Dead Beats. In 2024, DC Comics published "DC Pride: A Celebration of Rachel Pollack" reprinting issue 70 of "Doom Patrol" and issue 1 of "Vertigo Visions: The Geek #1 'Homelands of the Dolls'" as well as an introductory tribute by Stuart Moore and a new story, "Shining Through the Wreckage" revisiting Pollack's Doom Patrol character Coagula written by Joe Corallo.

Three of Pollack's novels won or were nominated for major awards in the science fiction and fantasy field: Unquenchable Fire won the 1989 Arthur C. Clarke Award; Godmother Night won the 1997 World Fantasy Award, was shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Literature; while Temporary Agency was nominated for the 1995 Nebula Award and the Mythopoeic Award, and shortlisted for the Tiptree. Her magical realism novels explore worlds imbued with elements pulled from a number of traditions, faiths, and religions. Several of her novels are set in an alternative reality that resembles modern America, but an America of Bright Beings, where magic and ritual, religion and thaumaturgy are the norms. Her short work "Burning Beard: The Dreams and Visions of Joseph ben Jacob, Lord Viceroy of Egypt" was published in 2007 in the anthology Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, edited by Theodora Goss and Delia Sherman. It was reprinted online in Lightspeed in May 2014.

Pollack's book The Body of the Goddess is an exploration of the history of the Goddess and her relation to locality and landscape. Pollack uses the image of the Goddess in many of her works.

In July 2022, Pollack revealed via Facebook that, after seemingly overcoming Hodgkin lymphoma several years earlier, she had been diagnosed with a different variant of lymphoma and would be undergoing chemotherapy. In August, Pollack's wife Zoe Matoff and Patricia Nolan announced that Pollack was in an intensive care unit and started a GoFundMe fundraiser for her medical expenses. Those who shared the fundraiser on Twitter included Neil Gaiman, Shelly Bond, Gail Simone, and DC Comics editors Chris Conroy and Andrea Shay, while prominent donors included Rachel Gold, Al Ewing, Kieron Gillen, Kim Newman, Brett Booth, and Cliff Chiang, ultimately raising over $28,000 against a $15,000 goal by September. On March 12, 2023, Gaiman announced on Instagram and Mastodon, at the behest of Pollack's wife, that Pollack was in hospice care and nearing the end of her life. This led some outlets to mistakenly report that Pollack had already died. Pollack died from Hodgkin lymphoma on April 7, 2023, at the age of 77.

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• The Wild Cows (1993) • Fortune's Lover (May 2009). A Midsummer Night's Press • Tyrant Oedipus (2012), with David Vine. EyeCorner Press

• "Introduction: A Machine for Constructing Stories" (1989) • Read This (The New York Review of Science Fiction, October 1991) (1991) • Read This (The New York Review of Science Fiction, July 1995) (1995) • Read This (The New York Review of Science Fiction, August 1996) (1996) *

• The Book of Embraces (1991) by Eduardo Galeano • Outside the Dog Museum (1992) by Jonathan Carroll • Coelestis [vt Celestis] (1996) by Paul Park

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Rachel Pollack is recorded as having received Arthur C. Clarke Award and World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.