Shannonhouse, Rebecca

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Shannonhouse, Rebecca

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY.

CAREER:

Freelance writer and editor.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor) Under the Influence: The Literature of Addiction, foreword by Pete Hamill, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and USA Today.

SIDELIGHTS:

Freelance writer Rebecca Shannon-house is the editor of Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness and Under the Influence: The Literature of Addiction. In Out of Her Mind, Shannon-house offers a selection of writings about mental illness, including Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted. "Out of Her Mind is a chic, slim, utterly tasteful volume, light enough for your purse but heavy enough—in subject matter—to be worth reading," remarked Charity Vogel in the Buffalo News. According to a contributor on the Sundress Publications Web site, "Each essay is unique, offering both first person and indirect accounts of ‘madness,’ making the book a valuable resource for those interested in psychology and women's writing."

Under the Influence, a look at substance abuse, gambling, and sexual addiction, contains essays, stories, and excerpts from longer works, including Confessions of an Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey, The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, and Love Sick by Sue Silverman. Writing in the Boston Phoenix, Richard C. Walls stated that Under the Influence "does establish a pedigree for drug-related writing," and a critic in Kirkus Reviews remarked that the volume offers "a nice variety of perspectives on the pleasures and perils of excess."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Boston Phoenix, March 27-April 3, 2003, Richard C. Walls, review of Out of Her Mind: Women Writing on Madness.

Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY), April 16, 2000, Charity Vogel, "Collection Is Lightweight Yet Provocative," review of Out of Her Mind, p. F6.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1999, review of Out of Her Mind, p. 1870; December 1, 2002, review of Under the Influence: The Literature of Addiction, p. 1757.

Library Journal, January, 2000, Angela M. Weiler, review of Out of Her Mind, p. 137.

New Yorker, March 13, 2000, review of Out of Her Mind, p. 22.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), February 9, 2003, review of Under the Influence, p. 6; March 23, 2003, review of Out of Her Mind, p. 6.