David Anthony Durham's Blog, page 2
January 31, 2019
Blog Post
There's a new blog post I wrote up at Wild Cards World.This one is about doing horrible things to another person's character.
November 14, 2018
Wild Cards Heading to TV!
Here, at long last, is the announcement of a supercool thing I've known was in the works for quite awhile now: Wild Cards series is a go on Hulu!This is rather exciting. Like, really exciting. Among other things, the first show is going to begin with Fort Freak , the first book I wrote for!
May 14, 2018
Award Winners Announced
I recently had the honor of judging the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation's College Writing Award in the fiction category. I read some really good stories, and for awhile I wasn't sure what was going to distinguish one as the winner. Then I read a story called "Belly." That decided it. Such a good story, from a writer the world is going to hear more from. I read the stories anonymously, and I've only recently heard who the winners actually are. The Foundation has just announced them!
And, by the way, this is the same award that I won way back in 1992. Good things come of it!
January 29, 2018
Coming Soon: Saladin Ahmed!
Here's something that makes me happy. Next week Saladin Ahmed visits the University of Nevada, Reno! He'll be here for the week, hanging with students, visiting classes, critiquing grad student work, doing events in the Reno community, and giving a reading on Tuesday, February 6 at 6:00pm to 7:30pm! We'll be feeding and entertaining him, too, of course. Isn't UNR cool?
Loving it here.
January 27, 2018
New Cards
Two new Wild Cards covers. One Eyed Jacks is a reprint from an earlier volume.
Low Chicago is brand new. Wild Cards continues to gain steam! Love that and really pleased to be involved with the series. Fingers crossed that the TV version happens!
Low Chicago is brand new. Wild Cards continues to gain steam! Love that and really pleased to be involved with the series. Fingers crossed that the TV version happens!
January 23, 2018
ConFusion 2018!
I'm just back from my first ConFusion.
I loved it! Great people. Good hanging out. I mean, really? Me hanging out with Charlie Jane Anders and Kate Elliott? Pic taken by John Scalzi and featured in a post on Whatever? Way too lovely.
Decent panel schedule too. They worked me! For example:
Friday 5PM INTERLOCHEN World-building Culture Beyond Aesthetics Many authors take care to ground readers in the aesthetic details of their secondary-world cultures, using clothing, architecture, food, and language to give readers a 'feel' for what a culture is like. Often, these details are drawn from stereotypes of real regions of the world, leaving us with the generic "middle easternness" of Narnia's Calormen, or the "future Chinese empire with no Chinese people" of Joss Whedon's Firefly. Let's talk about how to go beyond aesthetics to build original cultures with their own philosophies, biases, social orders, and worldviews. How can we build distinct cultures in our work without using medieval Europe as the cultureless default against which other societies are compared? What are our favorite fictional cultures, and our favorite stories that use distinct original cultures to add more to their world than appropriated aesthetics? David Anthony Durham, Max Gladstone, Michael R. Underwood, Scott H. Andrews, Shweta Adhyam
Friday 6PM SAUGATUCK Visions of Positive Masculinity - Moderator From high fantasy adventures to noir mysteries to superheroes and war stories, genre fiction has meticulously catalogued the narrow roles society expects men to occupy: strong, brave, and powerful, but also angry, competitive, emotionally repressed, and misogynistic. What does a character arc look like for the man who has decided not to be the best at performing this toxic vision of masculinity? We've seen many stories about women who struggle and triumph against gender roles. How can writers use social expectations of masculinity to create challenges that their male characters have to overcome to save the day? David Anthony Durham, Jason Sanford, Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Pablo Defendini
Saturday 10AM MANITOU Immigration and Refuge in Science Fiction - Moderator Travel stories are classics in any genre, but in science fiction stories of travelling to a new home are often about colonization, or about intrepid explorers amongst the (primitive) aliens. Let's talk about the science fiction stories that better reflect the experiences of immigrants and refugees in the real world. Alexandra Manglis, Amal El-Mohtar, David Anthony Durham, John Chu Saturday
12PM ISLE ROYALE The Ancient 1980s - Moderator When most people think historical fiction, they think of the 16th through 19th centuries. But genre fiction is increasingly taking on the recent past. What's the draw (beyond nostalgia) of the 1980s and 90s as fictional settings? What unique research challenges do they present, and how do writers balance providing familiarity for those who remember the era with background information for those who need context? What are our favorite modern works set in the recent past? Alexandra Manglis, David Anthony Durham, Michael W Lucas, Sara Dobie Bauer, Stephanie Morris
Saturday 2PM BIG TOP Any Sufficiently Detailed Magic System is Indistinguishable From Science - Moderator The influence of tabletop roleplaying games is widely felt in fantasy. Many stories make a 'science' out of their magic that reflects the carefully-balanced rules of a tabletop sourcebook. What are the trade-offs between creating magic systems with strict rules and leaving magic as a mysterious and unknown force? How do we balance the sense of wonder and magic against the desire to give readers a stable hook from which to suspend their disbelief? What makes a well-defined magic system work in a story, and when are we showing the reader too much of the machinery behind the curtain? Brandon Crilly, Charlie Jane Anders, David Anthony Durham, Kate Elliott, Shweta Adhyam, Jim Butcher
Saturday 5PM SAINT CLAIR Mass Autographing Session Come meet your favorite authors, artists and musicians and have them sign things! (Please limit your signing requests to 3 items per person.)
I loved it! Great people. Good hanging out. I mean, really? Me hanging out with Charlie Jane Anders and Kate Elliott? Pic taken by John Scalzi and featured in a post on Whatever? Way too lovely.
Decent panel schedule too. They worked me! For example:
Friday 5PM INTERLOCHEN World-building Culture Beyond Aesthetics Many authors take care to ground readers in the aesthetic details of their secondary-world cultures, using clothing, architecture, food, and language to give readers a 'feel' for what a culture is like. Often, these details are drawn from stereotypes of real regions of the world, leaving us with the generic "middle easternness" of Narnia's Calormen, or the "future Chinese empire with no Chinese people" of Joss Whedon's Firefly. Let's talk about how to go beyond aesthetics to build original cultures with their own philosophies, biases, social orders, and worldviews. How can we build distinct cultures in our work without using medieval Europe as the cultureless default against which other societies are compared? What are our favorite fictional cultures, and our favorite stories that use distinct original cultures to add more to their world than appropriated aesthetics? David Anthony Durham, Max Gladstone, Michael R. Underwood, Scott H. Andrews, Shweta Adhyam
Friday 6PM SAUGATUCK Visions of Positive Masculinity - Moderator From high fantasy adventures to noir mysteries to superheroes and war stories, genre fiction has meticulously catalogued the narrow roles society expects men to occupy: strong, brave, and powerful, but also angry, competitive, emotionally repressed, and misogynistic. What does a character arc look like for the man who has decided not to be the best at performing this toxic vision of masculinity? We've seen many stories about women who struggle and triumph against gender roles. How can writers use social expectations of masculinity to create challenges that their male characters have to overcome to save the day? David Anthony Durham, Jason Sanford, Jim C. Hines, John Chu, Pablo Defendini
Saturday 10AM MANITOU Immigration and Refuge in Science Fiction - Moderator Travel stories are classics in any genre, but in science fiction stories of travelling to a new home are often about colonization, or about intrepid explorers amongst the (primitive) aliens. Let's talk about the science fiction stories that better reflect the experiences of immigrants and refugees in the real world. Alexandra Manglis, Amal El-Mohtar, David Anthony Durham, John Chu Saturday
12PM ISLE ROYALE The Ancient 1980s - Moderator When most people think historical fiction, they think of the 16th through 19th centuries. But genre fiction is increasingly taking on the recent past. What's the draw (beyond nostalgia) of the 1980s and 90s as fictional settings? What unique research challenges do they present, and how do writers balance providing familiarity for those who remember the era with background information for those who need context? What are our favorite modern works set in the recent past? Alexandra Manglis, David Anthony Durham, Michael W Lucas, Sara Dobie Bauer, Stephanie Morris
Saturday 2PM BIG TOP Any Sufficiently Detailed Magic System is Indistinguishable From Science - Moderator The influence of tabletop roleplaying games is widely felt in fantasy. Many stories make a 'science' out of their magic that reflects the carefully-balanced rules of a tabletop sourcebook. What are the trade-offs between creating magic systems with strict rules and leaving magic as a mysterious and unknown force? How do we balance the sense of wonder and magic against the desire to give readers a stable hook from which to suspend their disbelief? What makes a well-defined magic system work in a story, and when are we showing the reader too much of the machinery behind the curtain? Brandon Crilly, Charlie Jane Anders, David Anthony Durham, Kate Elliott, Shweta Adhyam, Jim Butcher
Saturday 5PM SAINT CLAIR Mass Autographing Session Come meet your favorite authors, artists and musicians and have them sign things! (Please limit your signing requests to 3 items per person.)
November 28, 2017
La Rebelión
Here's something I'm happy to see. It's my most recent foreign publication - The Risen in Spanish!
La Rebelión.
I rather like that. Spartacus, in this version, is Espartaco. I rather like that, too.
Here's the copy text:
El nuevo libro del autor del best seller El orgullo de Cartago. Una novela soberbia sobre Espartaco, el legendario gladiador, y la revuelta de esclavos que encabezó y a punto estuvo de someter a Roma y sus invencibles legiones.En esta emocionante novela histórica somos testigos de la rebelión más famosa de la historia desde diversos, y a veces opuestos, puntos de vista, entre ellos el del propio Espartaco, el visionario cautivo y gladiador cuya constancia y carisma convierten la fuga de una prisión en una rebelión multicultural que amenaza a un imperio; el de la profética Astera, cuyo contacto con el mundo de los espíritus y sus augurios guía el desarrollo de la rebelión; el de Nonus, un soldado romano que se mueve a ambos lados del conflicto en un intento, en parte desesperado, de salvar la vida; el de Laelia y Hustus, dos niños pastores incorporados a las tropas de la rebelión de los esclavos, y el de Kaleb, el esclavo al servicio de Craso, el senador romano y comandante que carga con la poco envidiable tarea de aplastar una insurrección de meros esclavos, todo ello en un entorno de violencia, heroísmo y traición.Lo que está en juego con la rebelión de Espartaco es nada menos que el futuro del mundo antiguo. Nadie aporta más brío, inteligencia y frescura a la novela sobre la época clásica que David Anthony Durham.Sounds good, huh?
La Rebelión.
I rather like that. Spartacus, in this version, is Espartaco. I rather like that, too.
Here's the copy text:El nuevo libro del autor del best seller El orgullo de Cartago. Una novela soberbia sobre Espartaco, el legendario gladiador, y la revuelta de esclavos que encabezó y a punto estuvo de someter a Roma y sus invencibles legiones.En esta emocionante novela histórica somos testigos de la rebelión más famosa de la historia desde diversos, y a veces opuestos, puntos de vista, entre ellos el del propio Espartaco, el visionario cautivo y gladiador cuya constancia y carisma convierten la fuga de una prisión en una rebelión multicultural que amenaza a un imperio; el de la profética Astera, cuyo contacto con el mundo de los espíritus y sus augurios guía el desarrollo de la rebelión; el de Nonus, un soldado romano que se mueve a ambos lados del conflicto en un intento, en parte desesperado, de salvar la vida; el de Laelia y Hustus, dos niños pastores incorporados a las tropas de la rebelión de los esclavos, y el de Kaleb, el esclavo al servicio de Craso, el senador romano y comandante que carga con la poco envidiable tarea de aplastar una insurrección de meros esclavos, todo ello en un entorno de violencia, heroísmo y traición.Lo que está en juego con la rebelión de Espartaco es nada menos que el futuro del mundo antiguo. Nadie aporta más brío, inteligencia y frescura a la novela sobre la época clásica que David Anthony Durham.Sounds good, huh?
October 15, 2017
Wild Times
I'm back home after an awesome Wild Cards reunion in Santa Fe. Highlights include hanging with a bunch of authors, staying at GRRM's guest house, a big panel event, followed by a big signing event, visiting sets used in Western movies, stopping in to watch filming of a movie, meeting Vincent D'Onofrio and Ethan Hawke, meeting the lovely Marisa Xochtl Jimenez of the Stagecoach Foundation, watching Sage (my 16 year old son) network with authors, actors, directors and producers. He's got skills. Also, the last night's bash at Meow Wolf, where this photo was taken!
October 13, 2017
Amirisu
Love this. My daughter's commissioned artwork in the opening pages of a Japanese knitting magazine. Japan! She's an international artist, apparently.October 6, 2017
Wild Cards Mass Signing
Here's a cool thing:"Jean Cocteau Cinema Celebrates the WILD CARD ANNIVERSARY by hosting a special multi-author book signing with the authors of Wild Cards, an epic science fiction anthology about super heroes and powerful villains (edited by George R.R. Martin)."
That includes me!
Here's the announcement on the Jean Cocteau website.
And here's George's post on his Not a Blog.
It'll be a good time. My son, Sage, is going with me. I'll get to watch him network. ;-)
