Pseudonym of UK author, playwright and sometime teacher, actor, editor and publisher Helen White (1947-    ). Her first novel The Birth Machine (1983; text restored 1996) is dark semi-surrealist sf with ingredients of Feminism, built around an initially conforming citizen stirred to rebel. Baines states that inappropriate editing on its first appearance led her to self-publish a second edition as an "author's cut". The novel was adapted as a BBC Radio 4 Monday Play, broadcast 1992. Her second novel Body Cuts (1988) retains the dark slipstream tone but without sf elements. Baines has been prolific in well-received radio plays and literary short stories, with only very occasional genre content. [DR]

Elizabeth Baines

born Bridgend, South Wales: 1947

died

works

• The Birth Machine (London: The Women's Press, 1983) [pb/Hannah Firmin]
  • The Birth Machine: The Author's Cut (Manchester: Starling Editions, 1996) [rev: text restored: pb/photographic]
• Body Cuts (London: Pandora Press, 1988) [pb/Rachel Ross]

links

• Elizabeth Baines
• Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Previous versions of this entry

• 15/12/2006
• 20/12/2011
• 22/07/2012
• 21/08/2012
• 06/02/2013
• 09/08/2013
• 04/07/2014
• 22/10/2014
• 24/08/2015
• 16/09/2015
• 03/01/2017