Diane Duane is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 author. Her works include the Young Wizards

Young Wizards

Young Wizards is a series of novels by Diane Duane.The Young Wizards series presently consists of nine books, with a tenth in progress, focusing on the adventures of two young wizards named Nita and Kit. Each novel pits Nita and Kit against the "Lone Power", an entity ultimately bent on the...

young adult fantasy series and the Rihannsu

Rihannsu

Rihannsu is a series of five Star Trek novels by author Diane Duane. Rihannsu is the name that Romulans use for their race in Duane's series of books and the name of their language...

Star Trek novels.

Biography

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, she grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island

Roosevelt, New York

Roosevelt is a hamlet in Nassau County, New York, United States. The population was 16,258 at the 2010 census.Roosevelt is in the town of Hempstead.-Geography:Roosevelt is located at ....

. After school, she studied nursing and practiced as a psychiatric nurse for two years until 1976, when she moved to California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and worked as an assistant to David Gerrold

David Gerrold

Jerrold David Friedman , better known by his pen name David Gerrold, is an American science fiction author who started his career in 1966 while a college student by submitting an unsolicited story outline for the television series Star Trek. He was invited to submit several premises, and the one...

. Her first novel was published by Dell Books in 1979; Gerrold wrote an "overture" to that novel, on the grounds that he'd rather be making overtures than introductions to Duane. She subsequently worked as a freelance writer. In 1981 she moved to Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. She married Northern Irish

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 author Peter Morwood

Peter Morwood

Peter Morwood is primarily a fantasy novelist and screenwriter, though he has also written works of science fiction. His best-known works include the Horse Lords series and the Tales of Old Russia series.-Biography :...

 in 1987; they moved to the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and then to Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, where she resides in County Wicklow

County Wicklow

County Wicklow is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wicklow, which derives from the Old Norse name Víkingalág or Wykynlo. Wicklow County Council is the local authority for the county...

.

Young Wizards

A short story within the same universe, "Uptown Local", has also been published as part of Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen

Jane Hyatt Yolen is an American author and editor of almost 300 books. These include folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and children's books...

's Dragons and Dreams anthology, and a mp3 of Duane reading it is freely available from her website. It also appears in the twentieth anniversary edition of So You Want to be a Wizard.

In February 2011, Diane Duane announced she would be releasing new versions of the first 4 books in the series. She will be updating the technology used in the books, fixing some of the time line issues within the series, and overall making the series more appealing to the young adult reader of today. The first of the series will be available on or around June 21, 2011 in ebook format, through the Diane Duane ebooks store, with eventual distribution at other outlets. The next 3 books will follow over July and August 2011. The new books are planned to have new ISBN numbers, with the publisher switching to the revised editions with new covers around the time the next book in the series is released.

Feline Wizards

The series focuses on cat-wizards, who maintain the worldgates that wizards use for travel between the sheaf of canonical universes. They take place in the same setting as the Young Wizards novels.

2. (Published in the UK as )

The Big Meow

In December 2005, Duane proposed to her fans that they fund a third novel in the series, The Big Meow. After funding the project via whole-book subscriptions

Subscription business model

The subscription business model is a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service. The model was pioneered by magazines and newspapers, but is now used by many businesses and websites....

, per-chapter threshold pledges

Threshold pledge system

The threshold pledge or fund and release system is a way of making a fundraising pledge as a group of individuals, often involving charitable goals or financing the provision of a public good. An amount of money is set as the goal or threshold to reach for the specified purpose and interested...

, merchandising

Merchandising

Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer...

, "put something in the kitty" donation

Donation

A donation is a gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods including clothing, toys, food, and vehicles...

s, and $2,900 in challenge grant

Challenge grant

Challenge grants are funds dispersed by one party , usually a Government Agency, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, typically to a non-profit entity or educational institution upon completion of the challenge requirement...

s, Duane wrote, over a span of two and a half years, seven of the book's 12 chapters. No new chapters were published between July 2008 and February 2011, but on February 2, 2011, Duane announced the project's completion and posted the remaining chapters for subscribers between then and the 15th.

Adult Wizards

Books about adult wizards set in the same universe of the Young Wizards series.

• "Theobroma" featured in Wizards, Inc. (November 2007) http://www.youngwizards.com/Theobroma

Alternate Universes

The Young Wizards universe contains canonical alternate universes (So You Want to Be a Wizard

So You Want to Be a Wizard

So You Want To Be a Wizard is the first book in the Young Wizards series currently consisting of nine books by Diane Duane. It was written in 1982 and published in the next year.-Plot introduction:...

and To Visit the Queen

To Visit the Queen

To Visit the Queen is a fantasy steampunk novel by Diane Duane...

are good examples: the protagonists travel to alternate universes to solve problems there).

• Stealing the Elf-King's Roses (ISBN 0-446-60983-8) is set in a sheaf of universes originally mentioned in Nita's studies in So You Want To Be A Wizard.

The Middle Kingdoms

Also known as the Tale of the Five, this high fantasy series has been awaiting completion since 1992. The books center on some of the same themes as her better-known Young Wizards series; those who wield the Blue Fire have many of the same responsibilities as the wizards and fight the same battle against entropy

Entropy

Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...

. In So You Want to Be a Wizard Nita's wizardry manual is written by "Hearnssen", a reference to the protagonist of The Door Into Fire, Herewiss s'Hearn (son of Hearn), so it may be that the Middle Kingdoms are part of the same sheaf of universes as the Young Wizards setting. Adding to this, one interdimensional portal in The Door into Fire appears to open over New York City. Unlike Duane's children's books, however, the Tale of the Five series deals openly with issues of alternative sexuality. Within the Middle Kingdoms, bisexuality

Bisexuality

Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...

 and group marriage

Group marriage

Group marriage, also known as multi-lateral marriage, is a form of polyamory in which more than two persons form a family unit, with all the members of the group marriage being considered to be married to all the other members of the group marriage, and all members of the marriage share parental...

 are the norm. Duane is working on the final volume. The Door into Fire and The Door into Shadow have an omnibus reprint called Tale of Five: The Sword and the Dragon. (ISBN 978-1892065513)

1. The Door into Fire (1979)
2. The Door into Shadow (1984)
3. The Door into Sunset (1992)
4. The Door into Starlight (to be written)

Several short stories are set in the Middle Kingdoms:
Parting Gifts (1981) and its prequel The Span (1999) featuring Sirronde; Duane plans to write a middle novella and publish the three together as Sirronde's World.
Lior and the Sea (1985) is set in the world of the Middle Kingdoms, but not concerning any of the characters in the novels.

Star Trek

She has also written a number of Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

novels:

• Original Series
  4. (omnibus, containing Spock's World and A. C. Crispin's Sarek
     Sarek (Star Trek novel)
     Sarek is a novel by A. C. Crispin, set in the fictional Star Trek universe. It is set shortly after the motion picture Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country...
     
     )
  • Rihannsu
    2. (co-written with husband Peter Morwood)
    6. An omnibus of the first four Rihannsu novels, containing minor tweaks for consistency and reediting Swordhunt and Honor Blade into the originally-intended single novel.
• Next Generation

Duane also shares story credit on the TNG episode "Where No One Has Gone Before

Where No One Has Gone Before (TNG episode)

"Where No One Has Gone Before" is the 6th episode of the science fiction television series Star Trek: The Next Generation-Overview:An alien visitor takes the Enterprise on a wild trip outside of the galaxy.-Plot:...

" with Michael Reaves

Michael Reaves

James Michael Reaves is an American writer, known for his contributions as producer and story editor to a number of 1990s animated television series, including Disney's Gargoyles and Batman: The Animated Series. He has also written media tie-in novels, children's books, and original fiction...

.

Harbinger

The Harbinger Trilogy, published by Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

, is set in the Star*Drive universe. While Duane is not the only author to write for this universe, she was the first.

Spider-Man

Duane wrote a trilogy of Spider-Man novels, The Venom Factor, for Byron-Preiss Multimedia from 1994 to 1998. The trilogy was composed of:

Guardians of the Three

2. (written with Peter Morwood)

Space Cops

(written with Peter Morwood)

Net Force

Co-authored with Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...

 and Steve Pieczenik

1. Virtual Vandals
   
3. One Is the Loneliest Number
   
6. End Game
   
10. Safe House
    
13. Deathworld
    
16. Runaways
    
18. Death Match

Omnitopia

Short Stories

• "Parting Gifts" featured in Flashing Swords! #5: Demons and Daggers (1981), and released for free on her website as part of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
  International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
  International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is a commemoration declared by author Jo Walton, held on April 23 and first celebrated in 2007, in response to remarks made by Howard V. Hendrix stating that he was opposed "to the increasing presence in our organization [the Science Fiction and Fantasy...
  
  
• "Lior and the Sea" featured in Moonsinger's Friends (1986)
• "Apparitions" featured in The Further Adventures of Superman (1993)
• "The Dovrefell Cat" featured in Xanadu 2 (1995)
• "Don't Put That in Your Mouth, You Don't Know Where It's Been" featured in Don't Forget Your Space Suit, Dear (1996)
• "Recensions" featured in Amazing Magazine (1998)
• "Blank Check" in On Crusade: More Tales of the Knights Templar (1998)
• "1-900-nodream" featured in Perchance to Dream (2000)
• "Night Whispers" featured in Star Trek: Enterprise Logs (2000)
• "Herself" featured in "Emerald Magic" (2004)
• "The Fix" (2006)
• "Goths and Robbers" featured in the Doctor Who
  Doctor Who
  Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
  
  anthology Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership
  Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership
  Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership is a Big Finish original anthology edited by Keith R.A. DeCandido and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
  
  (2008)
• "The House" featured in Witch High (2008)

Comics

• "Ill Wind", five part graphic novel/miniseries for STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, DC Comics, New York: Autumn 1995-Spring 1996.
• "The Tale of Prince Ivan the Not-Too-Experienced", six-part comic script for THE DREAMERY, Epic Comics, December 1987 through August 1988.
• "The Last Word", STAR TREK #28: single-issue comic script for DC Comics, NYC, April 1986.
• "Double Blind", STAR TREK #24-25: two-part (comedy) comic script for DC Comics, NYC, Jan/Feb 1986.
• "The Misadventures of Prince Ivan." About Comics. February 2011. ISBN 978-1936404018.

Other prose works

Duane has recently made available in various e-formats a previously unpublished book which was sold to at least two European publishers, but never actually brought out due to internal restructuring at one publishing house (Corgi) and the sale of another (Heyne Verlag). The novel, A Wind from the South, is the first of a projected trilogy telling the story of a young girl born in the 11th century in a remote region of the Alps. This girl slowly discovers that she is the intended physical avatar of an exiled Roman goddess, while (as she grows) she becomes caught up in the political turmoil of William Tell

William Tell

William Tell is a folk hero of Switzerland. His legend is recorded in a late 15th century Swiss chronicle....

's time.

Duane was also responsible for a novelization of X-COM: UFO Defense

X-COM: UFO Defense

UFO: Enemy Unknown is a critically acclaimed strategy video game created by Julian Gollop and published by MicroProse Software in 1993...

, and for prose adaptations of several scripts from The Outer Limits

The Outer Limits (1995 TV series)

The Outer Limits is an American television series that originally aired on Showtime,the Sci Fi Channel and in syndication between 1995 and 2002...

. She has also written numerous short stories, about equally divided between fantasy and science fiction, which have appeared in various anthologies and collections over the last twenty years.

Screen works: film and television

Duane has worked in television since the early 1980s, initially becoming involved in script work at the Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...

 animation studio (now Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network is a name of television channels worldwide created by Turner Broadcasting which used to primarily show animated programming. The channel began broadcasting on October 1, 1992 in the United States....

). After writing numerous scripts for such series as Scooby and Scrappy-Doo, Captain Caveman, Space Stars

Space Stars

Space Stars is a 1981 NBC Saturday morning cartoon created by Hanna-Barbera which ran from 1981-1982.-Format:Space Stars ran four cartoon segments each week: Space Ghost, The Herculoids, Teen Force, and Astro and the Space Mutts. The cartoons would occasionally cross-over into one another...

, Fonz and the Happy Days Gang

Fonz and the Happy Days Gang

The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera in association with Paramount Television and originally broadcast from November 8, 1980, until September 18, 1982.-Premise:...

, Biskitts, and Laverne and Shirley in the Army, she moved on to work in development and serve as a staff writer at Filmation

Filmation

Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...

, and in 1985 was hired to story-edit the DiC

DIC

- Science :* Differential interference contrast microscopy, an illumination technique in optical microscopy* Diisopropylcarbodiimide, a reagent in organic chemistry* Digital Integrating Computer, a digital implementation of a Differential Analyzer...

 animated series Dinosaucers

Dinosaucers

Dinosaucers Dinosaucers Dinosaucers (known in Japan as: is an animated television series co-produced in the United States, Canada and Japan. It was created by DIC Entertainment and Madhouse which has done the overseas animation and in association with Ellipse Programmé and Nelvana. This animated...

. During this period she also wrote scripts for Sunbow Productions

Sunbow Productions

Sunbow Entertainment was an animation studio, founded in 1980 and owned up until 1998 by Griffin-Bacal Advertising in New York. The first animation efforts by Griffin-Bacal were producing the animated commercials for Hasbro's G.I...

 (Glo Friends

Glo Friends

Glo Friends are small glow-in-the-dark toys in the shape of insects and other small creatures that were made by Hasbro's Playskool division in the mid 1980s . Books were also made by Ladybird to accompany each Glo Friend...

, Transformers, and My Little Pony

My Little Pony

My Little Pony is a brand of toy ponies marketed primarily to girls produced by the toy manufacturer Hasbro. These ponies can be identified by their colorful bodies and manes and a unique symbol on one or both sides of their flanks...

) and Walt Disney Productions (Duck Tales). In 1986, she co-wrote (with Michael Reaves

Michael Reaves

James Michael Reaves is an American writer, known for his contributions as producer and story editor to a number of 1990s animated television series, including Disney's Gargoyles and Batman: The Animated Series. He has also written media tie-in novels, children's books, and original fiction...

) the script of one of the earliest episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...

, "Where No One Has Gone Before".

In the early 1990s Duane was brought on board as the head writer on the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 Television educational series Science Challenge. Shortly thereafter she co-wrote (with her husband) scripts for Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: The Animated Series

Batman: The Animated Series is an American animated series based on the DC Comics character Batman. The series featured an ensemble cast of many voice-actors including Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Arleen Sorkin, and Loren Lester. The series won four Emmy Awards and was nominated...

and for Gargoyles

Gargoyles (TV series)

Gargoyles is an American animated series created by Greg Weisman. It was produced by Greg Weisman and Frank Paur and aired from October 24, 1994 to February 15, 1997. Gargoyles is known for its dark tone, complex story arcs and melodrama...

. She also wrote the screenplay for the 1996 space adventure game Privateer 2 - The Darkening, which starred Clive Owen

Clive Owen

Clive Owen is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991...

, Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...

, Jürgen Prochnow

Jürgen Prochnow

Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...

 and Mathilda May

Mathilda May

Mathilda May is a French film actress.-Early life:May was born in Paris. Her father is playwright Victor Haïm, who is of Greek and Turkish descent. Her mother is Swedish ballet teacher and choreographer Margareta Hanson...

. Other screen work from that period includes the screenplay for the Space Island One

Space Island One

Space Island One is a British/German science fiction television series that ran for 26 episodes beginning in 1998. A co-production between the UK's Sky One channel and the German Vox channel, it starred Judy Loe as Kathryn McTiernan, the commander of the multinational crew of the space station...

episode "Not In My Back Yard" (1998–1999).

In 2003, after doing nearly four years' development work with the production company Tandem Communications

Tandem Communications

Tandem Communications is a Munich based company which produces TV movies, miniseries, television series and film series.It was founded in 1999 by Emmy-nominated producers Rola Bauer and Tim Halkin.-Produced:* Relic Hunter...

 of Munich, Germany, Duane and Peter Morwood co-wrote the script for the German TV miniseries Die Nibelungen. The miniseries aired in Germany on the Sat.1

Sat.1

Sat.1 is a privately owned German television broadcasting station. Sat.1 was the first privately owned television broadcasting station in Germany, having started one day before RTL Television....

 network in late November 2004, and a feature version (titled Sword of Xanten) screened in the UK in December 2004. A "megafeature" cut of the entire miniseries was aired on Channel Four television in the UK in December 2005. The miniseries aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US in late March 2006 under the title Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King

Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King

Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King is a fantasy film and mini-series based on the Norse mythology story Völsungasaga and the German epic poem Nibelungenlied, which tells the mythological story of Siegfried the Dragon-Slayer...

. The miniseries has also been released on DVD in the US and numerous other markets, under various titles (the previous US title was Curse of the Ring).

Duane was also the co-author of the Barbie

Barbie

Barbie is a fashion doll manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel, Inc. and launched in March 1959. American businesswoman Ruth Handler is credited with the creation of the doll using a German doll called Bild Lilli as her inspiration....

 movie Barbie: Fairytopia

Barbie: Fairytopia

Barbie: Fairytopia is a 2005 computer animated direct-to-video Barbie film directed by Walter P. Martishius and Will Lau. This film is the fifth in the Barbie film series of computer-animated Barbie films, and the first to have an original storyline not based on previous material...

.

An adaptation of So You Want to be a Wizard

So You Want to Be a Wizard

So You Want To Be a Wizard is the first book in the Young Wizards series currently consisting of nine books by Diane Duane. It was written in 1982 and published in the next year.-Plot introduction:...

is currently in the works.

Awards

• "Midnight Snack" (Cassette version): Award for Excellence in Education from Media & Methods Magazine, 1987.
• The Door Into Fire: Two-time John W. Campbell Award nominee for best new writer.
• "Young Wizards" series: special commendation in the Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize in Children's Literature, 2003.
• Wizard's Dilemma: Mythopoeic award
  Mythopoeic Awards
  The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given by the Mythopoeic Society to authors of outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas; the full criteria and description can be read on the Mythopoeic Society's -Mythopoeic Fantasy...
  
   nominee, 2002.
• Wizards at War: Mythopoeic award nominee, 2006.

External links

• DianeDuane.com, her personal website
• Weblog, mirrored by the author on LiveJournal
• Bibliography at SciFan
  SciFan
  SciFan is an online database for fans of science fiction and fantasy books.The site provides detailed bibliographies, linking books together into series' where appropriate and, in turn, grouping series by universe...
  
  
• Universe-Specific Sites:
  • Young Wizards
    • Young Wizards.com, interactive website and discussion forums
    • The Errantry Concordance, a wiki-format encyclopedia-in-progress of the Young Wizards universe
    • WizCast
  • Feline Wizards 3: The Big Meow, home to the online novel The Big Meow
  • Raetian Tales: A Wind from the South, home to the first "Raetian Tales" novel, A Wind from the South