Chelsea Cain

Last updated

Chelsea Cain
Chelsea Cain speaking in 2015.jpg
Cain in 2015
Born (1972-02-05) February 5, 1972 (age 51)
Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.
Occupation Novelist, columnist
Alma mater University of California at Irvine; University of Iowa
Period1996–present
Notable worksSweetheart, Heartsick, Evil at Heart
Website
chelseacain.com

Chelsea Snow Cain (born February 5, 1972) is an American writer of novels and columns.

Contents

Biography

Cain was born February 5, 1972, in Iowa City, Iowa, to Mary Cain and Larry Schmidt. [1] Cain spent her early childhood on a hippie commune outside of Iowa City. Her father dodged the Vietnam draft and her parents lived "underground" for several years. In 1978, she moved with her mother to Bellingham, Washington, where she attended Lowell Elementary School, Fairhaven Middle School, and Sehome High School. [1] She spent the school year in Bellingham with her mother and the summers in Florida with her father and stepmother and stepbrother.

Cain left Bellingham after high school to study political science at the University of California, Irvine, where she wrote for the New University newspaper and became the opinion editor. After graduating in 1994, she attended the graduate school of journalism at the University of Iowa.

While at Iowa, she wrote a weekly column for The Daily Iowan . [2] Her master's thesis at the University of Iowa became Dharma Girl, a memoir about Cain's early childhood on the hippie commune. One of her professors presented it to several editors for review, and Seal Press picked it up as Cain's first published work. She was 24 years old. [3]

She traveled across the United States on book tour with Dharma Girl, living for a brief period in Portland, Oregon, and then in New York City. After a year in New York, she returned to Portland, and edited an anthology for Seal Press titled Wild Child: Girlhoods in the Counterculture.

Cain is married to Marc Mohan, a video store owner and film reviewer for The Oregonian, and have lived in Southeast Portland since 2006. [4] They have one daughter, Eliza.

Cain and her family currently reside in Portland, Oregon. [5]

Career

After working as a creative director at a public relations firm in Portland for several years, Cain began writing humor books in her spare time, including The Hippie Handbook: How to Tie-Dye a T-Shirt, Flash a Peace Sign, and Other Essential Skills for the Carefree Life (Chronicle Books, 2004), Confessions of a Teen Sleuth (Bloomsbury, 2005), and Does this Cape Make Me Look Fat? Pop-Psychology for Superheroes (Chronicle Books, 2006), which Cain co-wrote with her husband. Cain also composed a weekly column for Portland's alternative newspaper, The Portland Mercury and started contributing to Portland's major daily, The Oregonian in 2003. when she left marketing behind to focus on writing full-time. Her last column with The Oregonian was posted on December 28, 2008.

She wrote her first thriller Heartsick in 2004, while pregnant with her daughter. It was published on September 4, 2007. Sweetheart and Evil at Heart followed as the second and third in the series, respectively.

In March 2016, Cain started writing a new Marvel Comics series, Mockingbird , the first solo series about the character. The series ran for eight issues before cancellation. [6]

She is the writer of comic book series Man-Eaters for Image Comics with artists Kate Niemczyk and Lia Miternique, [7] which became available in shops in September 2018 [8] and ended in October 2019. Man-Eaters was criticized for failing to account for trans experiences as the plot revolves around a disease that impacts people based on sex-specific symptoms. [9] Cain's response was to print tweets criticizing her in subsequent issues of the book, which resulted in harassment and threats being aimed at her critics, and called into question the legality of publishing tweets. [10] She went on to ask for volunteers to do sensitivity reading, as she stated the book was expensive to produce and she could not offer any pay for the job. [11] Despite this widespread criticism, Cain returned to Image to publish Man-Eaters: Tomorrow Belongs to You! in March 2020 and an additional five issue miniseries called Man-Eaters: The Cursed in July 2021.

Accolades

Bibliography

Gretchen Lowell Series

Kick Lannigan Series

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Groening</span> American cartoonist (born 1954)

Matthew Abram Groening is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is best known as the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell (1977–2012) and the television series The Simpsons (1989–present), Futurama, and Disenchantment (2018–2023). The Simpsons is the longest-running U.S. primetime television series in history and the longest-running U.S. animated series and sitcom.

<i>The Oregonian</i> Daily newspaper published in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

The Oregonian is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. West Coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850, and published daily since 1861. It is the largest newspaper in Oregon and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest by circulation. It is one of the few newspapers with a statewide focus in the United States. The Sunday edition is published under the title The Sunday Oregonian. The regular edition was published under the title The Morning Oregonian from 1861 until 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cain and Abel (comics)</span> DC Comics characters

Cain and Abel are a pair of fictional characters in the DC Comics universe based on the biblical Cain and Abel. They are key figures in DC's "Mystery" line of the late 1960s and 1970s, which became the mature-readers imprint Vertigo in 1993.

<i>Force Works</i> Marvel comics superhero team

Force Works was the name of different fictional superhero teams appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Batgirl</span> Comic book superheroine

Batgirl is the name of several fictional superheroines appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, depicted as female counterparts and allies to the superhero Batman. The character Betty Kane was introduced into publication in 1961 by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff as Bat-Girl, and was replaced in 1967 by Barbara Gordon, who became the iconic Batgirl. The character debuted in Detective Comics #359 by writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino, introduced as the niece/adoptive daughter of police commissioner James Gordon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secret Six (comics)</span> Name for multiple fictional teams in DC Comics

The Secret Six is the name of three different fictional comic book teams in the DC Comics Universe, plus an alternate universe's fourth team. Each team has had six members, led by a mysterious figure named Mockingbird, whom the characters assume to be one of the other five members. The third, anti-heroic incarnation of the Secret Six was rated by IGN as the fourth Best Comic Run of the Decade in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mockingbird (Marvel Comics)</span> Marvel Comics fictional character

Barbara "Bobbi" Morse is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Astonishing Tales #6 in 1971 as a supporting character and eventual love interest of Ka-Zar, with a Ph.D in biology. She is soon revealed to be the highly trained Agent 19 of S.H.I.E.L.D., taking the moniker Huntress in Marvel Super Action #1 in 1976, and Mockingbird in Marvel Team-Up #95 in 1980, before going on to be a member of several Avengers teams, briefly marrying and subsequently divorcing Clint Barton / Hawkeye.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Strayed</span> American writer (born 1968)

Cheryl Strayed is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel Torch (2006) and the nonfiction books Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), Tiny Beautiful Things (2012) and Brave Enough (2015). Wild, the story of Strayed's 1995 hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, is an international bestseller and was adapted into the 2014 Academy Award-nominated film Wild.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hawkeye (Clint Barton)</span> Marvel Comics fictional character

Hawkeye is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Don Heck, the character first appeared as a supervillain in Tales of Suspense #57 and later joined the Avengers as a superhero in The Avengers #16. He has since been a prominent member of several Avengers teams, founding the West Coast Avengers, briefly marrying and subsequently divorcing Bobbi Morse / Mockingbird, adopting the Ronin alias after his death and resurrection before mentoring Kate Bishop as his successor as Hawkeye. He was also ranked at #44 on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes list.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erika Moen</span> American comic book artist (born 1983)

Erika Moen is an American comic book artist, known for her autobiographical comic DAR, and the sex educational Oh Joy, Sex Toy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lidia Yuknavitch</span> American writer, teacher and editor

Lidia Yuknavitch is an American writer, teacher and editor based in Oregon. She is the author of the memoir The Chronology of Water, and the novels The Small Backs of Children,Dora: A Headcase, and The Book of Joan. She is also known for her TED talk "The Beauty of Being a Misfit", which has been viewed over 3.2 million times, and her follow-up book The Misfit's Manifesto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tapalaya</span> Defunct restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Tapalaya was a Vietnamese-Cajun restaurant owned by chef Anh Luu in the Kerns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. The restaurant closed in 2019, and was replaced by a vegan restaurant called The Sudra.

<i>Confessions of a Teen Sleuth</i> Book by Chelsea Cain

Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: A Parody is a 2005 parody novel by American writer Chelsea Cain. The book is a parody of the Nancy Drew mystery series published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene and created by Edward Stratemeyer. The novel purports to be the true story of Nancy Drew, who claims that Keene was a former college roommate who plagiarized her life story while also misrepresenting Drew in the process. It incorporates characters from the mystery series while also including or mentioning characters from other series such as The Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames, and Encyclopedia Brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bipartisan Cafe</span> Coffee shop in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Bipartisan Cafe is a coffee shop and bakery in the Montavilla neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. Since Hobie Bender and Peter Emerson started the business in 2005, the venue has hosted events that include meetings of civic groups and politicians, and viewing parties for political events. Bipartisan Cafe has garnered a positive reception, and has been named as one of Portland's best coffee and pie eateries. The venue's marionberry pie was included in the American Automobile Association's 2022 list of the ten best regional Western dishes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beast (restaurant)</span> Defunct restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Beast was a restaurant in Portland, Oregon. The business earned chef and owner Naomi Pomeroy a James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Northwest in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coquine</span> Restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Coquine is a restaurant located in the Mount Tabor neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. The restaurant serves French-inspired food made from ingredients purchased from local farms as well as Stumptown Coffee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Bonita</span> Mexican restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

La Bonita: Food for the People, or simply La Bonita, is a small chain of Mexican restaurants in Portland, Oregon, United States. The family-owned business operates three locations in north, northeast, and southeast Portland, serving burritos, chilaquiles, tacos, tamales, and other traditional cuisine. The restaurant has a good reputation, and has been included on two Thrillist lists of the country's best burritos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ya Hala</span> Restaurant in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

Ya Hala Lebanese Cuisine, or simply Ya Hala, is a Lebanese and Middle Eastern restaurant in Portland, Oregon, United States. The business was established as a deli counter in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bolivia Carmichaels</span> American drag performer

Daniel P. Elliott, known professionally as Bolivia Carmichaels, is an American drag performer based in Portland, Oregon. Since 1995, she has performed at LGBT establishments such as CC Slaughters, Darcelle XV Showplace, and the defunct Embers Avenue, and has also participated in many community events.

References

  1. 1 2 Dharma Girl (1996)
  2. "UI alumna Chelsea Cain reads Oct. 11 for 'Live at Prairie Lights'". University of Iowa. September 28, 2007. Archived from the original on February 6, 2008. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  3. Miller, Laura (November 17, 1996). "Iowa Fields Forever". The New York Times Book Review . Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  4. Eastman, Janet (November 10, 2023). "Novelist Chelsea Cain puts historic Portland home with pink rooms up for sale at $1,250,000". The Oregonian/OregonLive. Retrieved November 10, 2023.
  5. "Heartsick". Macmillan Publishers. Archived from the original on October 18, 2008. Retrieved October 22, 2008.
  6. "Marvel's MOCKINGBIRD is Cancelled with Issue 8's Release Today". October 19, 2016.
  7. Man-Eaters webpage at Image Comics website. Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  8. Diamond Comic Distributors shipping list for 2018 September 26 Archived June 24, 2019, at the Wayback Machine at a Diamond Comic Distributors website. Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  9. "Questioning Chelsea Cain's Feminist Agenda". June 10, 2019.
  10. "Punching Down: Chelsea Cain's reaction to fair criticism is unacceptable • AIPT". June 9, 2019.
  11. "Chelsea Cain reprinted a reader's tweets without permission in MAN-EATERS #9 and then everything exploded". June 10, 2019.
  12. ew.com Archived January 18, 2009, at the Wayback Machine . Entertainment Weekly.