Maria Dahvana Headley

Early life

Maria Dahvana Headley was born June 21, 1977 in Estacada, Oregon. After graduating from Vallivue High School in Caldwell, Idaho, in 1995, she attended New York University, where she studied dramatic writing at the Tisch School of the Arts Dramatic Writing Program.

The Mere Wife

In October, 2015, Farrar, Straus and Girouxg editor Sean McDonald acquired The Mere Wife at auction.

"Best-selling Magonia author, Maria Dahvana Headley’s THE MERE WIFE, a ferocious, sexy, and politically topical literary adaptation of Beowulf set in present-day New York, to Sean McDonald at FSG at auction by Stephanie Cabot at The Gernert Company (NA)."

Magonia

In 2014, HarperCollins acquired the young adult novel Magonia and a sequel. 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 in Publisher's Weekly in February, 2015, being named one of the Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2015. It was a New York Times Young Adult bestseller in 2015. The sequel, Aerie, was published in 2016.

Queen of Kings

In early 2010, Dutton purchased Headley's debut novel Queen of Kings, which explores "the transcendent powers of love even beyond death, entwining the true story of Antony and Cleopatra and Rome's invasion of Alexandria with a narrative in which the Queen of Egypt sacrifices her soul to save her fallen husband and in return is transformed into an immortal goddess bent on the destruction of the Roman Empire". It was purchased as part of a trilogy deal. The hardcover was released in 2011.

The 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 by Paramount Pictures and the Jinks/Cohen Company (producers of American Beauty, and Big Fish, among other films), 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 through HarperCollins Thorsons Element imprint. The Year of Yes is a 2006 Finalist in The Books for a Better Life Award.

The Year of Yes was released in hardcover in January 2006, and in paperback in January 2007.

Other writing

The novella The End of the Sentence, co-written with Kat 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. It was named one of NPR's Best Books of 2014.

The Book of the Dead, a 2013 anthology of science fiction & fantasy stories "all themed around the most mysterious, versatile and, perhaps, under-appreciated of the undead: the mummy," published by Jurassic London & the Egypt Exploration Society, will feature Headley's mummies and candy story, "Bit-U-Men".

The short story "Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream" was published by Lightspeed magazine in 2012,

The Lowest Heaven, a 2013 anthology of science fiction stories devoted to the solar system published by Jurassic London & The Royal Observatory Greenwich, contains Headley's short story "The Krakatoan", which was simultaneously published in Nightmare magazine.

"The Traditional", a short story, was published in Lightspeed magazine in 2013.

The short story "Moveable Beast" was published in the anthology Unnatural Creatures in 2013, and was a Nebula Award finalist in the short story category. It is anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013, edited by Rich Horton.

The novelette Game was published by Subterranean Press in 2012 and appeared in The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2013, edited by Paula Guran.

"Seeräuber", a short story about a Jenny Haniver, was published by Subterranean Press in late 2012.

Headley's plays, Drive Me and Last of the Breed, have been produced at Boise Contemporary Theater in Boise, Idaho.

Her story "Some Gods of El Paso", a Tor.com Original, was published in October 2015.

Editorial work

Headley is co-editor with Neil Gaiman on the New York Times-bestselling anthology Unnatural Creatures, an anthology to benefit 826DC, containing natural history-themed monster stories by a variety of authors both living and dead, including Samuel R. Delany, E. Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Nalo Hopkinson, Headley and Gaiman.

Awards and recognition

Headley is a 2012 Nebula Award Finalist, a 2013 Shirley Jackson Award Finalist, a MacDowell Colony Fellow, and has attended The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Sundance Playwright's Lab, The Kennedy Center's New Visions/New Voices workshop, Brave New Works, and the WordBridge Playwright's Lab. She has been a featured author at ABA Winter Institute, Bumbershoot, Wordstock, and the Texas Book Festival. In 2017, she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in Short Fiction for “Little Widow."

Personal life

Headley lived in Seattle for many years before returning to New York, where she lives now.