Maria Dahvana Headley (born June 21, 1977) is an American novelist, memoirist, editor, translator, poet, and playwright. She is aNew York Times-bestselling author as well as editor.
In October, 2015,Farrar, Straus and Giroux editor Sean McDonald acquiredThe Mere Wife at auction, describing it as "a ferocious, sexy, and politically topical literary adaptation of Beowulf set in present-day New York".[7]The Mere Wife was nominated for the 2019World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.[8]
In 2014, HarperCollins acquired the young adult novelMagonia and a sequel.[9]Magonia, the story of a 16-year-old girl with a mysterious breathing disease who finds herself on a sky ship in the historical kingdom of Magonia, was published in April 2015. It received a starred review inPublishers Weekly in February, 2015, being named one of thePublishers Weekly Best Books of 2015.[10] It was aNew York Times Young Adult bestseller in 2015.[11] The sequel,Aerie, was published in 2016.
"The Year of Yes" redirects here. For the EP by Twice, seeThe Year of "Yes".
In 2006, Hyperion published her memoir,The Year of Yes, an account of the year Headley spent saying yes to dates with anyone who asked her out.The Year of Yes has been optioned for the screen byParamount Pictures and the Jinks/Cohen Company (producers ofAmerican Beauty, andBig Fish, among other films),[14] and has been or will be translated into Korean, German, Dutch, Italian, Hebrew, and Chinese, as well as appearing in an additional English-language edition in the UK and world marketplace throughHarperCollins Thorsons Element imprint.[15]The Year of Yes is a 2006 Finalist in The Books for a Better Life Award.[16]
The Year of Yes was released in hardcover in January 2006, and in paperback in January 2007.
The novellaThe End of the Sentence, co-written withKat Howard, is "a fairytale of ghosts and guilt, literary horror blended with the visuals of Jean Cocteau, failed executions, shapeshifting goblins, and magical blacksmithery." It was published by Subterranean Press in September 2014.[17] It was named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014.[18]
The Book of the Dead, a 2013 anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories "all themed around the most mysterious, versatile and, perhaps, under-appreciated of the undead: the mummy," published by Jurassic London and theEgypt Exploration Society, will feature Headley's mummies and candy story, "Bit-U-Men".[19][20]
The short story "Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream" was published byLightspeed magazine in 2012,[21]
The Lowest Heaven, a 2013 anthology of science fiction stories devoted to theSolar System published by Jurassic London & TheRoyal Observatory Greenwich, contains Headley's short story "The Krakatoan",[22] which was simultaneously published inNightmare magazine.[23]
"The Traditional", a short story, was published inLightspeed magazine in 2013.[24]
The short story "Moveable Beast" was published in the anthologyUnnatural Creatures in 2013, and was aNebula Award finalist in the short story category. It is anthologized inThe Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013, edited by Rich Horton.[25]
The noveletteGame was published bySubterranean Press in 2012 and appeared inThe Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2013, edited by Paula Guran.
"Seeräuber", a short story about aJenny Haniver, was published by Subterranean Press in late 2012.
Her story "Some Gods of El Paso", aTor.com Original, was published in October 2015.[27]
Her story "Memoirs of an Imaginary Country", a retelling of a lost tale of Casanova, was published in theBoston Review special 2017 fiction issue Global Dystopias, and published online in 2020.[28]
Headley is co-editor withNeil Gaiman on theNew York Times-bestselling anthologyUnnatural Creatures, an anthology to benefit 826DC, containing natural history-themed monster stories by a variety of authors both living and dead, includingSamuel R. Delany,E. Nesbit,Diana Wynne Jones,Nalo Hopkinson, Headley and Gaiman.[29]
In 2018, while at an event for her novelThe Mere Wife, she met Will Badger, one of the founders of theTolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature. He had come to invite her to deliver the lecture, which she accepted. They kept in contact and eventually fell in love. She gave birth to their son Grimoire in 2019.[34][35]
