Tananarive Due
Encyclopedia
Tananarive Due is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author.

Biography

Tananarive Priscilla Due was born in Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee is the capital of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, and is the 128th largest city in the United States. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2010, the population recorded by...

, the oldest of three daughters of civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due
Patricia Stephens Due
Patricia Stephens Due is one of the leading African-American civil rights activists in the United States, especially in her home state of Florida...

 and civil rights lawyer John D. Due Jr. Her mother named her after Antananarivo
Antananarivo
Antananarivo , formerly Tananarive , is the capital and largest city in Madagascar. It is also known by its French colonial shorthand form Tana....

, the capital of Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

.

Due is married to author Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes is an African American science fiction writer, lecturer, creative consultant, and human performance technician....

, whom she met in 1997 at a university panel on "The African-American Fantastic Imagination: Explorations in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror". The couple lives in Glendora, California
Glendora, California
Glendora is a municipality in Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. As of the 2010 census, the population of Glendora was 50,073....

.

Career

Due earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

 and an M.A. in English literature, with an emphasis on Nigerian literature
Nigerian literature
Nigeria has produced many prolific writers. Many have won accolades for their writing abilities, including Daniel O. Fagunwa, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Femi Osofisan, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, Elechi Amadi Ben Okri...

, from the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

. At Northwestern, she lived in the Communications Residential College.

Due was working as a journalist and columnist for the Miami Herald when she wrote her first novel, The Between
The Between
The Between is the first novel by writer Tananarive Due. It was nominated for the1996 Bram Stoker Award.Part horror novel, part detective story and part speculative fiction, "The Between" is a mix of genres. Yet it is no hybrid. It is a finely honed work that always engages and frequently surprises...

, in 1995. This, like many of her subsequent books, was part of the supernatural genre. Due has also written The Black Rose, historical fiction about Madam C.J. Walker (based in part on research conducted by Alex Haley
Alex Haley
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...

 before his death) and Freedom in the Family, a non-fiction work about the civil rights struggle. She also was one of the contributors to the humor novel Naked Came the Manatee
Naked Came the Manatee
Naked Came the Manatee is a mystery thriller parody novel published in 1996. It is composed of thirteen chapters, each written by a different Miami-area writer. It was originally published as a serial in the Miami Herald's Tropic magazine, one chapter per issue, and later published as a single novel...

, in which various Miami
Miami, Florida
Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

 area authors each contributed chapters to a mystery/thriller parody.

Due has noted that her upcoming releases will be the sequels Blood Colony in the summer of 2008 and In The Night Of The Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Story in the fall of 2008.

Speculative Fiction Novels

  • The Between
    The Between
    The Between is the first novel by writer Tananarive Due. It was nominated for the1996 Bram Stoker Award.Part horror novel, part detective story and part speculative fiction, "The Between" is a mix of genres. Yet it is no hybrid. It is a finely honed work that always engages and frequently surprises...

     (1995)
  • The Good House
    The Good House
    -Reviews:* By MARK ATHITAKIS, The New York Times, October 31, 2004* by Paula Guran* by June Pulliam, 2005...

     (2003)
  • Joplin's Ghost (2005)

African Immortals Series

  • My Soul To Keep
    My Soul to Keep
    My Soul to Keep is a novel by writer Tananarive Due. A film version of this book is in production with actor Blair Underwood. It is the first book in Due's African Immortals Series and it followed by The Living Blood. The third book in the series, Blood Colony, was published in 2008.-Reviews:* by...

     (1997)
  • The Living Blood
    The Living Blood
    The Living Blood is a novel by writer Tananarive Due. It is the second book in Due's African Immortals Series. It is preceded by My Soul to Keep, which was published in 1997, and is followed by Blood Colony, which was published in 2008....

     (2001)
  • Blood Colony (2008)
  • My Soul To Take (2011)

Mysteries

  • Naked Came the Manatee
    Naked Came the Manatee
    Naked Came the Manatee is a mystery thriller parody novel published in 1996. It is composed of thirteen chapters, each written by a different Miami-area writer. It was originally published as a serial in the Miami Herald's Tropic magazine, one chapter per issue, and later published as a single novel...

     (1996) (contributor)
  • Casanegra (novel) (2007) (with Blair Underwood
    Blair Underwood
    Blair Underwood is an American television and film actor. He is perhaps best known as headstrong attorney Jonathan Rollins from the NBC legal drama L.A. Law, a role he portrayed for seven years. He has gained critical acclaim throughout his career, receiving numerous Golden Globe Award...

     and Steven Barnes
    Steven Barnes
    Steven Barnes is an African American science fiction writer, lecturer, creative consultant, and human performance technician....

    )
  • In The Night Of The Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel (2008) (with Blair Underwood and Steven Barnes)

Short Stories

  • Like Daughter, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
    Dark Matter (series)
    Dark Matter is an anthology series of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stories and essays produced by people of African descent. The editor of the series is Sheree Thomas. The first book in the series, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora won the 2001 World...

     (2000)
  • Patient Zero, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection
    The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection
    The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection is a science fiction anthology edited by Gardner Dozois that was published in 2001...

     (2001)
  • Trial Day, Mojo: Conjure Stories
    Mojo: Conjure Stories
    Mojo: Conjure Stories is an anthology of fantasy and horror short stories, edited by the writer Nalo Hopkinson and published in 2003.-Stories:* Andy Duncan, Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull* Kiini Ibura Salaam, Rosamojo...

     (2003)
  • Aftermoon, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones
    Dark Matter (series)
    Dark Matter is an anthology series of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror stories and essays produced by people of African descent. The editor of the series is Sheree Thomas. The first book in the series, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora won the 2001 World...

     (2004)
  • Senora Suerte, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
    The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
    The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...

     (September 2006)

Other Works

  • The Black Rose, historical fiction about Madam C.J. Walker (2000)
  • Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights (2003) (with Patricia Stephens Due)

Awards

  • Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award
    Bram Stoker Award
    The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...

     for Superior Achievement in a First Novel for The Between
    The Between
    The Between is the first novel by writer Tananarive Due. It was nominated for the1996 Bram Stoker Award.Part horror novel, part detective story and part speculative fiction, "The Between" is a mix of genres. Yet it is no hybrid. It is a finely honed work that always engages and frequently surprises...

  • Nominated for a Bram Stoker Award
    Bram Stoker Award
    The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...

     for Best Novel for My Soul to Keep
    My Soul to Keep
    My Soul to Keep is a novel by writer Tananarive Due. A film version of this book is in production with actor Blair Underwood. It is the first book in Due's African Immortals Series and it followed by The Living Blood. The third book in the series, Blood Colony, was published in 2008.-Reviews:* by...

  • Nominated for an NAACP Image Award
    NAACP Image Award
    An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....

     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)
  • The American Book Award
    American Book Award
    The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...

     for The Living Blood
    The Living Blood
    The Living Blood is a novel by writer Tananarive Due. It is the second book in Due's African Immortals Series. It is preceded by My Soul to Keep, which was published in 1997, and is followed by Blood Colony, which was published in 2008....

  • 2008 Carl Brandon Kindred Award for the novella "Ghost Summer," which appeared in the anthology The Ancestors (2008)

Interviews


External links

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