Tananarive Due

American author and educator (born 1966) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tananarive Due

Tananarive Priscilla Due (/təˈnænərv ˈdj/ 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 (2001), and the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, and the World Fantasy Award for her novel The Reformatory (2023).[1][2] 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.[3]

Quick Facts Born, Occupation ...
Tananarive Due
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Due at the 2023 National Book Festival
Born (1966-01-05) January 5, 1966 (age 59)
Tallahassee, Florida, U.S.
OccupationWriter, educator
NationalityAmerican
EducationMedill School of Journalism (BS, MA)
GenreScience fiction, mystery, horror
SpouseSteven Barnes (husband)
RelativesJason (son)
Nicki (stepdaughter)
Website
www.tananarivedue.com
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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.[4] Her mother named her after the French name for Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar.[5]

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.[4] At Northwestern, she lived in the Communications Residential College.[6]

Career

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Perspective

Due was working as a journalist and columnist for the Miami Herald when she wrote her first novel, The Between, in 1995.[6] This, like many of her subsequent books, was part of the supernatural genre.[7] 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 nonfiction 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[8] and is also an endowed Cosby chair in the humanities at Spelman College in Atlanta.[9]

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.[3] The first course went viral and included a visit from Jordan Peele.[3]

Due was featured in the 2019 documentary film Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, produced by Shudder.[3]

Her novel The Reformatory was published by Saga Press in 2023.[10][11]

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".[12] The couple lives in the Los Angeles, California area with their son, Jason.[13]

Bibliography

Novels

Speculative fiction

African Immortals series

Mysteries

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

More information Title, Year ...
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes
Patient Zero 2000 Due, Tananarive (August 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.
The Rider 2023 Due, Tananarive (2023). "The Rider". In Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams (ed.). An Anthology of New Black Horror. Penguin Random House.
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Other works

  • The Black Rose, historical fiction about Madam C. J. Walker[17] (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)[18]

Awards and recognition

See also

References

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