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Blog postThis week, writer/filmmaker Ava DuVernay premieres her documentary The 13th, which explores the history of and profound racial bias in our system of mass incarceration, at the New York Film Festival. (It debuts on Netflix and some theaters Oct. 7.)
Director Ava DuVernay
Also premiering this week: the Netflix series Luke Cage, where showrunner/writer Cheo Hodari Coker chose to make Cage’s superhero costume a hoodie as a way to honor Trayvon Martin and bring racial bias to5 years ago Read more -
Blog postEDITED 10/10/15-- WEBINAR LINK AT THE END
What a week!
Last week, I launched my new short story collection, Ghost Summer, at EsoWon books in Los Angeles, where I was interviewed by awesome "Project Greenlight" producer Effie Brown. (To get a link for audio and video to that interview and join my mailing list, sign up here.)
Effie and I talked about my experiences transitioning from novels to screenplays, and I revealed some of my worst mistakes as6 years ago Read more -
Blog postDeRay Mckesson (left) and Ferguson protesters in Missouri in 2014. No photo credit provided. 1-12-19 update: This post refers to early episodes of this series. The racial inclusivity changed significantly, but I have left this post up to inform and educate other horror television creators on how to avoid pitfalls of racial imagery common in horror. --TD
As a lifelong horror lover who has co-written and co-produced a short zombie film, I've often pondered why zombies have6 years ago Read more -
Blog postPublishers Weekly (Starred review) - “In these extraordinary tales, American Book Award–winner Due (My Soul to Take) uses a clear-eyed view of history to explain (but never excuse) the present.” READ MORE HERE
Ghost Summer named one of Publisher’s Weekly’s “Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2015”
About Ghost Summer:
Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence bestse6 years ago Read more -
Blog postAre you working on a screenplay or want to get started on you? Would you like input from industry professionals on your screenplay idea?Are you an author who would like to learn to adapt your books to film?Whether you’re a screenwriter, a novelist or a producer, there has never been a more exciting time to try to get your foot in the door in television and film. But it all begins on the page – with a terrific screenplay or teleplay.After a successful fall workshop, authors and screenwr6 years ago Read more
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Blog postAre you working on a screenplay, or do you have a screenplay idea you’re not sure how to start?
Do you want input from industry professionals on your screenplay or idea?
Are you an author who would like to learn to adapt your own work to film?
Whether you’re a screenwriter, a prose writer or a producer, there has never been a more exciting time to try to get your foot in the door in television and film. But it all begins on the page – with a terrific screenplay or teleplay.7 years ago Read more -
Blog postI can't believe it: I actually made a zombie movie! This short film is my first foray into filmmaking--as a co-screenwriter and co-producer. My husband and collaborator, Steven Barnes, and I adapted our first published short story collaboration, a nasty little zombie story called "Danger Word," into a short film. It's a post-apocalyptic story about a grandfather trying to help his grandchild survive the zombie plague. We co-produced this short with the director, Luchina Fisher.
7 years ago Read more -
Blog postUPDATED 5/21: Big news! After years of circling and being circled by Hollywood, my husband, Steven Barnes, and I have written our first short film, Danger Word, based on our characters from our YA post-apocalyptic novel Devil's Wake. We're also co-producing it with director Luchina Fisher! The shoot is scheduled Memorial Day weekend in the woods of upstate New York, starring veteran actor Frankie Faison ("The Wire," "Banshee," Coming to America).
8 years ago Read more -
Blog postOur young protagonists, including Kendra and Terry, are on a dangerous road trip in a school bus after Freak Day, when an infection causing rabies-like symptoms in humans swept the nation...and perhaps the world. They are on their way to a settlement called Domino Falls, where they hope to find safety and shelter. On the way, a man wearing a birthday hat has waved them down on the road. Kendra waits in the bus while her friends investigate his home.Since Freak Day, nothin8 years ago Read more
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Blog postPROLOGUE ALL ACTORS DREAM of a meeting that will change our lives forever, but I didn’t dare hope that Gustavo Escobar would be mine. Even my agent had no idea why Escobar had called me. Escobar was an Oscar-nominated director on a hot streak, and I was lucky to have a job playing a corrupt lawyer on one of the last surviving soap operas. After twenty years in the industry, I no longer believed in the Big Bang. My microscopic part in a9 years ago Read more
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Blog postThankfully, Longview's streets weren't stacked with cars and bodies. Kendra drove past the industrial districts, those smokestacks that no longer belched white, the waterway now clogged with logs that, in saner days, would have gone to the Weyerhauser mill to build houses and make cardboard boxes. Nothing moved. Interstate 5 stayed mostly clear too. Until she'd driven twelve miles down. There, just as the9 years ago Read more
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Blog postThe first zombie movie I remember seeing was George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, probably when I was in high school—and I was mesmerized by its iconic shopping mall gore and mayhem. My mother raised me on the old Universal horror movies like The Wolfman, which were scary, but Dawn of the Deadwas jaw-droppingly shocking. I was hooked on zombies.
Like millions of other television viewers, I’m looking forward to the new season of Th9 years ago Read more -
Blog postPhoto credit: Tallahassee Demorat My mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, died on Feb. 7, 2012 after a long struggle with cancer. We also wrote a civil rights memoir together, Freedom in the Family: a Mother-Daughter Memoir of the9 years ago Read more
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Blog postWhat happens when you combine a giddy author fresh from Hollywood with an iPhone video camera? A book trailer on a shoestring budget! (In fact, all it cost me was time and a 1.99 iPhone app called 8mm Vintage Camera that creates neat vintage film effects.)
This is a trailer for My Soul to Take (Washington Square Press / Sept. 6). Fans of my African Immortals series will recognize the Underground Railroad and Glow from its predecessor, Bloo10 years ago Read more -
Blog postWhen I was four years old, I folded several pages of typing paper in half to create my first book, which I misspelled on the cover as "Babby Bobby." It wasn't a page-turner, just a simple story about a baby named Bobby who was sitting in his crib, drinking from his bottle and trying to get through his day. I did my own stick-figure illustrations.
A lot has happened since "Baby Bobby." With the upcoming publication of My Soul to Take (Sept.10 years ago Read more -
Blog postRecently, I had the opportunity to take part in Art Sanctuary's "Celebration of Black Writing" in Philadelphia. After I gave a talk on writing science fiction, I was interviewed by Maurice Waters from BlackSci-Fi.com. (I think these general principles apply to writing all speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy and horror.) Let me know what you think of these tips!
10 years ago Read more -
Blog postI am generally a private person, but I was moved to write publicly about my mother's battle with thyroid cancer with an essay for CNN.com: "Behind Mom's dark glasses: A civil rights leader's biggest fight."
My mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, is also the co-author of our 2003 civil rights memoir, Freedom in the Family: a Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights, which I have discussed previously on this blog.10 years ago Read more -
Blog postNOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This excerpt was the original prologue to MY SOUL TO TAKE, although it has now been moved to Chapter Three. I chose this excerpt because it takes the readers full circle to my original story in MY SOUL TO KEEP, the 1997 novel that introduced a Miami newspaper reporter named Jessica and her husband, David, who is secretly an immortal.
My African Immortals series ponders the price of immortality, the price of power, and what it might be like to10 years ago Read more -
Blog postIn 1997, I published a novel entitled My Soul to Keep that marked the beginning of what I now call my African Immortals series. The story centers around a 500-year-old Ethiopian immortal named Dawit and the Miami newspaper reporter, Jessica, who is unwittingly married to him. At the time, I had no series in mind.
The novel was a watershed for me: It has endured as a reader favorite, and was blurbed by Octavia E. Butler and Stephen King, who wrote that it "11 years ago Read more -
Blog post
One glance at our new novel, From Cape Town with Love (Atria Books), will tell you that it wants to be a movie. The title is a riff of the James Bond movie From Russia with Love. The cover looks like a movie poster, and the book has its own iMix soundtrack.
That was the idea behind the Tennyson Hardwick series the three of us envisioned: me, my husband, Steven Barnes, and a11 years ago Read more -
Blog postVisit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
This week marks the hardcover publication of From Cape Town with Love (Atria Books) and a Vook video e-book edition with exciting video clips dramatized directly from the book's pages by Blair Underwood and other familiar faces, inluding a memorable appearance by Kellita Smith ("The Bernie Mac Show").
From Cape Town with Love is a collaboration between me and m11 years ago Read more -
Blog postI first met Blair Underwood years ago through his efforts to mount a film version of a novel I sent him when I was a new writer. My husband, Steven Barnes, and I have been collaborating on fiction and screenplays for a dozen years.
In 2007, the Tennyson Hardwick series was born as an answer to the lessons we have learned in Hollywood—Blair as an actor, storyteller, director and producer, and Steve and I as writers11 years ago Read more -
Blog postI can't believe it, but in May we'll be publishing our third novel in our Tennyson Hardwick mystery series, From Cape Town with Love. These are the books I'm co-authoring with my husband, Steven Barnes, in partnership with actor Blair Underwood.
This book literally begins where 2008's NAACP Image Award-winning In the Night of the Heat left off, so there's plenty of time to catch up...but all of these books are written so that first-time readers can follow them too!
Before we po11 years ago Read more -
Blog postA few months ago, my sister Lydia gifted me with an iPhone. While I'm not thrilled with the cost of keeping it up and running, my relationship with my iPhone has become so strong that I often joke that it is unwholesome. I literally sleep with my iPhone under my pillow at night.
Why? Originally, it was to feed my bedtime audio book habit, but I can use my old iPod classic for that. Instead, I've grown more and more dependent on my iPhone apps to relax me and help me sleep. During a recent11 years ago Read more -
Blog postCAPTION: Posing with E. Lynn Harris and my mother, Patricia Stephens Due, at Books & Books in Miami.
OK…send prayers up. I'm off to my meeting with one of Hollywood's most powerful ladies. Got the suit on and the new scent I purchased yesterday and I'm ready for my close up.
--E. Lynn Harris’s last Facebook update to 3,800 friends and readers,
posted the day he died
When I think of E. Lynn Harris, who died on July 23, this is the moment I remember: I’m12 years ago Read more
"An eerie epic. I loved this novel." -- Stephen King
The award-winning master of horror, acclaimed author, screenwriter, and scholar Tananarive Due’s classic African Immortals series starts with an electrifying piece of dark fantasy, My Soul to Keep.
When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost. Now, his immortal brethren have decided David must return and leave his family in Miami. Instead, David vows to invoke a forbidden ritual to keep Jessica and his daughter with him forever.
Harrowing, engrossing and skillfully rendered, My Soul to Keep traps Jessica between the desperation of immortals who want to rob her of her life and a husband who wants to rob her of her soul. With deft plotting and an unforgettable climax, this tour de force that Stephen King called 'An eerie epic' is sure to win Due a legion of new fans.
The home that belonged to Angela Toussaint's late grandmother is so beloved that the townspeople in Sacajawea, Washington call it the Good House. But that all changes one summer when an unexpected tragedy takes place behind its closed doors, and the Toussaint's family history—and future—is dramatically transformed.
Angela has not returned to the Good House since her son, Corey, died there two years ago. But now, Angela is finally ready to return to her hometown and go beyond the grave to unearth the truth about Corey's death. Could it be related to a terrifying entity Angela's grandmother battled seven decades ago? And what about the other senseless calamities that Sacajawea has seen in recent years? Has Angela's grandmother, an African American woman reputed to have "powers," put a curse on the entire community?
A thrilling exploration of secrets, lies, and divine inspiration, The Good House will haunt readers long after its chilling conclusion.
Jessica Jacobs-Wolde has somehow survived the worst that any mother or wife could ever endure: the deaths of her husband and first daughter. But now, four years later, not only is the nightmare continuing -- it may have only just begun. Jessica has discovered the terrifying truth behind the legacy that her husband left to their second daughter, Fana...a legacy preordained a thousand years before her time and drenched in the powerful lifeblood that now courses through her veins. As young Fana begins to display unearthly abilities that are quickly spiraling out of control, she becomes the target of those who will stop at nothing to exploit her power -- and the unwitting touchstone in an ancient supernatural battle whose outcome may decide the fate of all humanity.
There's a new drug on the street: Glow. Said to heal almost any illness, it is distributed by an Underground Railroad of drug peddlers. But what gives Glow its power? Its main ingredient is blood -- the blood of immortals. A small but powerful colony of immortals is distributing the blood, slowly wiping out the AIDS epidemic and other diseases around the world.
Meet Fana Wolde, seventeen years old, the only immortal born with the Living Blood. She can read minds, and her injuries heal immediately. When her best friend, a mortal, is imprisoned by Fana's family, Fana helps her escape -- and together they run away from Fana's protected home in Washington State to join the Underground Railroad.
But Fana has more than her parents to worry about: Glow peddlers are being murdered by a violent, hundred-year-old sect with ties to the Vatican. Now, when Fana is most vulnerable, she is being hunted to fulfill an ancient blood prophecy that could lead to countless deaths.
While her people search for Fana and race to unravel the unknown sect's mysterious origins, Fana must learn to confront the deadly forces -- or she and everyone she loves will die.
Fana, an immortal with tremendous telepathic abilities, is locked in a battle of wills. Her fiancé is Michel. But Johnny Wright, a mortal who is in love with her, believes that if she doesn’t stay away from Michel, they will become the Witnesses to the Apocalypse described in the Book of Revelation.
Fana and the Life Brothers are rushing to distribute their healing “Living Blood” throughout the world, hoping to eliminate most diseases before Fana is bound to marry Michel. Still, they cannot heal people faster than Michel can kill them. Due weaves a tangled web in this novel, including beloved characters from her bestselling Joplin’s Ghost, in a war of good against evil, making My Soul to Take a chilling and thrilling experience.
“An extraordinary work of humane imagination . . . call it magic realism with soul.”—Locus
“Finely honed . . . always engages and frequently surprises.”—New York Times Book Review
A man risks his soul and his sanity to save his family from malevolent forces in this brilliant novel of horror and the supernatural from the award-winning pioneer of speculative fiction and author of the classic My Soul to Keep.
When Hilton was a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake.
When Hilton's wife, the only elected African American judge in Dade County, Florida, begins to receive racist hate mail from a man she once prosecuted, Hilton becomes obsessed with protecting his family. The demons lurking outside are matched by his internal terrors—macabre nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are these bizarre dreams the dark imaginings of a man losing his hold on sanity—or are they harbingers of terrible events to come?
As Hilton battles both the sociopath threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep, the line between reality and fantasy dissolves . . .
Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between is the haunting story of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves as he slowly loses himself.
When Phoenix Smalls was ten, she nearly died at her parents' jazz club when she was crushed by a turn-of-the-century piano. Now twenty-four, Phoenix is launching a career as an R&B singer. She's living out her dreams and seems destined for fame and fortune. But a chance visit to a historical site in St. Louis ignites a series of bizarre, erotic encounters with a spirit who may be the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin.
The sound of Scott Joplin is strange enough to the ears of the hip-hop generation. But the idea that these antique sounds are being channeled through Phoenix? Her life is suddenly hanging in the balance. How will she find her true voice and calling? Can the power of her own inner song give Phoenix the strength to fight to live out her own future? Or will she be forever trapped in Scott Joplin's doomed, tragic past? Stunningly original, Joplin's Ghost is a novel filled with art and intrigue—and is sure to bring music to readers' ears.
Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes. Renowned author Alex Haley became fascinated by the story of this extraordinary heroine, and before his death in 1992, he embarked on the research and outline of a major novel based on her life. With The Black Rose, critically acclaimed writer Tananarive Due brings Haley’s work to an inspiring completion.
Blending documented history, vivid dialogue, and a sweeping fictionalized narrative, Tananarive Due paints a vivid portrait of this passionate and tenacious pioneer and the unforgettable era in which she lived.
Praise for The Black Rose
“An artfully framed page-turner.”—Essence
“An impressive accomplishment . . . Due’s combination of historical study and fictional exploration endows this gripping tale with intimacy and emotional authenticity.”—The Miami Herald
Georgia Center for the Book has chosen Atlanta Noir as one of 2018's Books All Georgians Should Read!
Kenji Jasper's "A Moment of Clarity at the Waffle House" nominated for a 2018 Edgar Award for Best Short Story!
"Atlanta has its share, maybe more than its share, of prosperity. But wealth is no safeguard against peril...Creepy as well as dark, grim in outlook...Hints of the supernatural may make these tales...appealing to lovers of ghost stories."
--Kirkus Reviews
"These stories, most of them by relative unknowns, offer plenty of human interest...All the tales have a Southern feel."
--Publishers Weekly
"Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta, returns to the South via Akashic's ever-growing city anthology series. The collection features stories from an impressive roster of talent including Jim Grimsley, Sheri Joseph, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms and David James Poissant. The 14 selections each take place in different Atlanta neighborhood."
--Atlanta-Journal Constitution
"Now comes Atlanta Noir, an anthology that masterfully blends a chorus of voices, both familiar and new, from every corner of Atlanta...The magic of Atlanta Noir is readily apparent, starting with the introduction Jones pens. It doesn’t rest solely upon the breadth of writers but on how their words, stories and references are so Atlanta--so very particular, so very familiar and so very readily, for those who know the city, nostalgic. And for those who don’t? The sense of place it captures inspires a desire to get to know Atlanta and its stories."
--ArtsATL
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. This much-anticipated and long-overdue installment in Akashic's Noir Series reveals many sides of Atlanta known only to its residents.
Brand-new stories by: Tananarive Due, Kenji Jasper, Tayari Jones, Dallas Hudgens, Jim Grimsley, Brandon Massey, Jennifer Harlow, Sheri Joseph, Alesia Parker, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms, John Holman, Daniel Black, and David James Poissant.
From the introduction by Tayari Jones:
Atlanta itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past...
These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir...However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell, but are hell itself...Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda, or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up.
Travel into the best dark fantasy and horror from 2011 with more than five-hundred pages of tales from some of today's best-known writers of the fantastique as well as new talents — stories that will take you to a diverse assortment of dark places.