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 |
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]
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]
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]
Her novel The Reformatory: A Novel was published by Saga Press in 2023.[8]
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".[9] The couple lives in the Los Angeles, California area with their son, Jason.[10]