Tananarive Due facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tananarive Due
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Due at the 2023 National Book Festival
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| Born | Tananarive Priscilla Due January 5, 1966 Tallahassee, Florida, U.S. |
| 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) |
Tananarive Priscilla Due (born January 5, 1966) is an American author and teacher famous for her horror, science fiction, and mystery novels. She is also an expert on the history of Black horror movies.
Due has won many major awards for her writing. Her 2001 novel, The Living Blood, won an American Book Award. More recently, her 2023 novel The Reformatory won several top honors, including the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award.
Besides writing, Due teaches a popular course at the UCLA. The class is called "The Sunken Place: Racism, Survival and the Black Horror Aesthetic." It explores themes in Black horror, inspired by the Jordan Peele movie Get Out.
Contents
A Writer's Beginnings
Tananarive Due was born in Tallahassee, Florida. She is the oldest of three daughters. Her parents were the civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due and the civil rights lawyer John D. Due Jr. Civil rights activists are people who work to make sure everyone has equal rights.
Her mother gave her a unique name. Tananarive is the French name for Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar.
For her education, Due went to Northwestern University. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism. She later earned a Master of Arts degree in English literature from the University of Leeds in England, where she focused on literature from Nigeria.
Writing Career
Due started her career as a journalist for the Miami Herald. While working there, she wrote her first novel, The Between, which was published in 1995. This book, like many of her others, is a supernatural story. Supernatural stories include ghosts, magic, or other things that can't be explained by science.
Famous Books and Projects
Due has written many popular books. She wrote The Black Rose, a historical novel about the life of Madam C. J. Walker, a famous businesswoman. She also wrote a non-fiction book called Freedom in the Family, which tells the story of her family's role in the civil rights movement.
She is the author of the African Immortals series and the Tennyson Hardwick mystery novels. Due was also featured in the 2019 documentary film Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, which explores the history of Black characters and creators in the horror genre.
Teaching and Inspiring Others
Due is a professor in the creative writing program at Antioch University Los Angeles. She has also been a special professor at Spelman College in Atlanta.
Her class at UCLA about Black horror became famous after it was first offered. The director Jordan Peele even visited the class to talk with students.
Personal Life
Due is married to Steven Barnes, who is also a writer. They met in 1997 at a university event where they were both speaking about science fiction, fantasy, and horror. The couple lives near Los Angeles, California, with their son, Jason.
Awards and Recognition
Tananarive Due has received many awards for her work. Here are some of her major achievements:
- For The Reformatory (2023):
- Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel
- Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel
- Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
- Winner of the Chautauqua Prize
- Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize for science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction
- Other Major Awards:
- American Book Award for The Living Blood
- NAACP Image Award for In the Night of the Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel
- British Fantasy Award for the short story collection Ghost Summer
- Ember Award for her important contributions to genre fiction
She has also been nominated for many other awards throughout her career, including for her first novel, The Between.
See also
In Spanish: Tananarive Due para niños
- List of horror fiction authors
