Tananarive Due
Tananarive Priscilla Due (/təˈnænəriːv ˈdjuː/ tə-NAN-ə-reev DEW) (born January 5, 1966) is an American author and educator. Due won the American Book Award for her novel The Living Blood. She is also known as a film historian with expertise in Black horror. Due teaches a course at UCLA called "The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and the Black Horror Aesthetic", which focuses on the Jordan Peele film Get Out.[1]
Tananarive Due | |
---|---|
Born | Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. | January 5, 1966
Occupation | Writer, educator |
Nationality | American |
Education | Medill School of Journalism (BS, MA) |
Genre | Science fiction, mystery, horror |
Spouse | Steven Barnes (husband) |
Relatives | Jason (son) Nicki (stepdaughter) |
Website | |
www |
Early life and education
Due was born in Tallahassee, Florida, the oldest of three daughters of civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due and civil rights lawyer John D. Due Jr.[2] Her mother named her after the French name for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.[3]
Due earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and an M.A. in English literature, with an emphasis on Nigerian literature, from the University of Leeds.[2] At Northwestern, she lived in the Communications Residential College.[4]
Career
Due was working as a journalist and columnist for the Miami Herald when she wrote her first novel, The Between, in 1995.[4] This, like many of her subsequent books, was part of the supernatural genre.[5] Due also wrote The Black Rose, a historical novel about Madam C. J. Walker (based in part on research conducted by Alex Haley before his death) and Freedom in the Family, a non-fiction work about the civil rights struggle. She contributed to the humor novel Naked Came the Manatee, a mystery/thriller parody to which various Miami-area authors each contributed chapters. Due also authored the African Immortals novel series and the Tennyson Hardwick novels.
Due is a member of the affiliate faculty in the creative writing MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles[6] and is also an endowed Cosby chair in the humanities at Spelman College in Atlanta.[7]
She developed a course at UCLA called "The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival And The Black Horror Aesthetic," after the release of the 2017 film Get Out. [1] The first course went viral and included a visit from Peele.[1]
Due was featured in the 2019 documentary film Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, produced by Shudder.[1]
Personal life
Due is married to author Steven Barnes, whom she met in 1997 at a Clark Atlanta University panel on "The African-American Fantastic Imagination: Explorations in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror".[8] The couple lives in the Los Angeles, California area with their son, Jason.[9]
Bibliography
Speculative fiction
- The Between (1995)
- The Good House (2003)
- Joplin's Ghost (2005)
- Ghost Summer: Stories (2015)
African Immortals series
- My Soul to Keep (1997)
- The Living Blood (2001)
- Blood Colony (2008)
- My Soul To Take (2011)
Mysteries
- Naked Came the Manatee (1996) (contributor)
The Tennyson Hardwick novels
- Casanegra (2007; with Blair Underwood and Steven Barnes)
- In the Night of the Heat (2008; with Blair Underwood and Steven Barnes)
- From Cape Town with Love (2010; with Blair Underwood and Steven Barnes)
- South by Southeast (2012; with Blair Underwood and Steven Barnes)
Short stories
- "Like Daughter", Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000)
- "Trial Day", Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003)
- "Aftermoon", Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2004)
- "Senora Suerte", The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction[10] (2006)
- "The Lake" (2011)
- "Enhancement", Whose Future is It? (2018)[11]
- "The Wishing Pool" (2021)[12]
Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Patient Zero | 2000 | Due, Tananarive (Aug 2000). "Patient Zero". F&SF. 99 (2): 5–21. | Due, Tananarive (2001). "Patient Zero". In Dozois, Gardner (ed.). The year's best science fiction : eighteenth annual collection. St. Martin's Griffin. | |
Other works
- The Black Rose, historical fiction about Madam C. J. Walker[13] (2000)
- Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights (2003) (with Patricia Stephens Due)
- Devil's Wake (with Steven Barnes) (2012)
- Domino Falls (2013)
- Ghost Summer (Collection) (2015)
- The Keeper (with Steven Barnes) (2022)
- The Wishing Pool and Other Stories (Collection) (2023)[14]
Awards and recognition
- Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel for The Between
- Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel for My Soul to Keep[8]
- Nominated for an NAACP Image Award for The Black Rose
- Received the NAACP Image Award for In the Night of the Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel (with Blair Underwood and Steven Barnes)[15]
- The American Book Award for The Living Blood
- 2008 Carl Brandon Kindred Award for the novella "Ghost Summer", which appeared in the anthology The Ancestors (2008)[16]
- Winner of the 2016 British Fantasy Award for the short story collection Ghost Summer.
- Winner of the 2020 Ignyte Award for Best in Creative Nonfiction for Black Horror Rising, published in Uncanny Magazine (2019)[17]
- Winner of the 2022 Ember Award "for unsung contributions to genre"[18]
See also
References
- "What Is Black Horror? 'The Sunken Place' Professor Tananarive Due Explains". shadowandact.com. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
- Tananarive Due – Author
- Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights, by Patricia Stephens Due and Tananarive Due (Ballantine, 2003)
- Alumni News – Fall 2001
- Mary A. Mohanraj,"Tananarive Due" in Richard Bleiler, Ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers: Contemporary Fantasy and Horror. New York: Thomson/Gale, 2003 (pp. 309–314), ISBN 9780684312507.
- "Tananarive Due | Antioch University Los Angeles". Retrieved 2013-08-31.
- "Past - Present Chairs". Archived from the original on 2013-09-06. Retrieved 2013-08-31.
- Introduction by Gardner Dozois to "Patient Zero" by Tananarive Due in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection, p. 491.
- "About Tananarive Due". Retrieved 2013-08-31.
- Review of "Senora Suerte" by Eugie Foster, July 2006
- "Tananarive Due" in Cellarius Stories, Volume 1. Cellarius, Ed., New York: 2018 (pp. 33–75, Kindle edition), ISBN 978-1-949688-02-3.
- Words, Tananarive Due in Uncanny Magazine Issue Forty-One | 4102. "The Wishing Pool". Uncanny Magazine. Retrieved 2021-12-20.
- "Books in Brief: Fiction; Making It Big in Hair" By Charles Wilson, The New York Times, August 27, 2000.
- Due, Tananarive (2023-04-18). The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. Akashic Books. ISBN 978-1-63614-107-7.
- 40th NAACP Image Awards Archived 2010-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
- Carl Brandon Society Award Winners Retrieved 3-1-2011
- "2020 Ignyte Awards Results". FIyahCon2021. Retrieved 2022-06-17.
- Asher-Perrin, Emmet (18 September 2022). "Announcing the Winners of the 2022 Ignyte Awards!". Tor.com. Retrieved 13 March 2023.
External links
- Official website
- Tananarive Due at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Tananarive Due: 'My Soul to Keep'—Interview on NPR, All Things Considered, October 31, 1997 (Audio)