April Daniels (author)

Last updated

April Daniels
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater University of California, Santa Cruz
Period2017–present
Notable worksDreadnought, Sovereign

April Daniels is an American author of the Nemesis superhero trilogy.

Contents

Personal life and education

Daniels lived in Ashland, Oregon until she was ten years old, where she was exposed to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, before her family moved to Los Angeles, California. [1] She was homeless in San Francisco for a time, [2] [3] [4] and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. [1] She graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a degree in literature. [3] Daniels is a trans woman. [2] [5] Daniels is also a contributor to The Mary Sue . [3]

Nemesis series

Daniels' first book, Dreadnought, introduces a girl named Danny Tozer who inherits the mantle of her world's foremost superhero [6] —the eponymous Dreadnought—which gives her powers like flight and the feminine body she has wanted ever since she realized she was transgender, [3] [7] and thrusts her into confrontation with a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) witch and other supervillains. [1] [2] [5] [8] It was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. [9]

Daniels' second book, Sovereign, introduces a genderqueer superhero named Kinetiq, continues to explore the moral and mental health implications of Danny's fights with villains, and has her file for emancipation from her abusive family and find love. [2] [5] [10]

A third and final installment in the Nemesis series is currently in development. [11]

In 2018, the series was optioned for film to Wayne Brady's production company, Makin' It Up Productions. [6]

Bibliography

Nemesis series

  1. Dreadnought (2017) – ISBN   978-1682300688
  2. Sovereign (2017) – ISBN   978-1682308240

Awards

Year [lower-alpha 1] WorkAwardCategoryResult
2018Dreadnought; Sovereign James Tiptree Jr Memorial Award Honor List
Sovereign Locus Awards Young Adult 18th

Notes

  1. Year of award ceremony.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Choi</span> American novelist (born 1969)

Susan Choi is an American novelist.

Katherine V. Forrest is a Canadian-born American writer, best known for her novels about lesbian police detective Kate Delafield. Her books have won and been finalists for Lambda Literary Award twelve times, as well as other awards. She has been referred to by some "a founding mother of lesbian fiction writing."

Ellen Hart is the award-winning mystery author of the Jane Lawless and Sophie Greenway series. Born in Maine, she was a professional chef for 14 years. Hart's mysteries include culinary elements similar to those of Diane Mott Davidson.

Lee Lynch is an American author writing primarily on lesbian themes, specifically noted for authentic characterizing of butch and femme characters in fiction. She is the recipient of a Golden Crown Literary Society Trail Blazer award for lifetime achievement, as well as being the namesake for the Golden Crown Literary Society's Lee Lynch Classics Award.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is an American novelist. She has received many awards for her fiction, including two National Science Foundation Artists & Writers Fellowships, a California Arts Council Fellowship, a Yaddo Fellowship, the American Library Association Stonewall Award, the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize, the Saturday Evening Post Fiction Award, the Sherwood Anderson Prize for Fiction, two Pushcart nominations, and the Devil's Kitchen Fiction Award. She is a six-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and a three-time finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malinda Lo</span> American writer

Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels including Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, Inheritance,A Line in the Dark, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. She also does research on diversity in young adult literature and publishing.

Jeanne Thornton is an American writer and copublisher of Instar Books and Rocksalt Magazine. She has received the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging LGBTQ Writers. Anthologies to which she has contributed to have won a Lambda Literary Award and a Barbara Gittings Literature Award. Works she has written and edited have been finalists for Lambda Literary Awards for Debut Fiction, Transgender Fiction, and Graphic Novel. Her 2021 novel Summer Fun is a one-sided epistolary novel consisting of letters from a transgender woman in New Mexico to a fictional musician based on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys; it won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction.

Casey Plett is a Canadian writer, best known for her novel Little Fish, her Lambda Literary Award winning short story collection, A Safe Girl to Love, and her Giller Prize-nominated short story collection, A Dream of a Woman. Plett is a transgender woman, and she often centers this experience in her writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryka Aoki</span> American author

Ryka Aoki is an American author of novels, poetry, and essays. She teaches English at Santa Monica College and gender studies at Antioch University.

<i>Melissa</i> (novel) 2015 book by Alex Gino

Melissa, previously published as George until April 2022, is a children's novel about a young transgender girl written by American author Alex Gino. The novel tells the story of Melissa, a fourth-grade girl who is struggling to be herself to the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees Melissa as George, a boy. Melissa uses the class play, Charlotte's Web, to show her mom that she is a girl by switching roles with her best friend, and playing the part of Charlotte. Scholastic first published the novel on August 25, 2015, and it has had a mixed reaction because of its LGBT+ content. In 2021, Gino retitled the novel Melissa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danny Ramadan</span> Syrian–Canadian novelist, public speaker, and LGBTQ-refugee activist

Ahmad Danny Ramadan is a Syrian–Canadian novelist, public speaker, and LGBTQ-refugee activist who was born in Damascus, Syria. Ramadan's work focuses on themes of immigration, identity, diaspora and belonging. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won multiple awards. The Foghorn Echoes won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meredith Russo</span> 21st-century American author

Meredith Russo is an American young adult author from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Gwen Benaway is a Canadian poet and activist. As of October 2019, she was a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

C. B. Lee is a Chinese-Vietnamese-American author based out of Los Angeles, California. They are the author of young adult fiction, best known for their Sidekick Squad series, which follows a quartet of teenagers in a near future world of superheroes and supervillains.

Ashley Herring Blake is an American author of children's fiction, best known for her Stonewall Honor Book Award-winning middle grade debut Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World and Girl Made of Stars.

Rebekah Weatherspoon is an American author and romance novelist. Her books often feature heroines who are Black, plus-size, disabled, and/or LGBTQ. She founded the website WOC in Romance. Weatherspoon received a 2017 Lambda Literary Award for her novel Soul to Keep and was an honoree at the inaugural Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romance Fiction for Xeni.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Launch Point Press</span> American publishing company

Launch Point Press is a small press publisher of lesbian literature based in Portland, Oregon.

Cherae Clark, also known under the pen name C. L. Clark, is an American author and editor of speculative fiction, a personal trainer, and an English teacher. She graduated from Indiana University's creative writing MFA and was a 2012 Lambda Literary Fellow. Their debut novel, The Unbroken, first book of the Magic of the Lost trilogy, was published by Orbit Books in 2021 and received critical acclaim, including starred reviews at Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. The Unbroken was a Finalist for the 2021 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2022 Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel from the British Fantasy Awards, the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Novel - Adult, and the 2022 Locus Award for Best First Novel. Her work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies,FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Glitter + Ashes: Queer Tales of a World That Wouldn't Die, PodCastle, Tor.com, Uncanny, and The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2021). Clark edited, with series editor Charles Payseur, We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2020, which won the 2022 Ignyte Award for Best Anthology/Collected Work and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Anthology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Joseph White</span> American author

Andrew Joseph White is an American young adult fiction author. He is best known for New York Times bestselling dystopian young adult novel Hell Followed with Us (2022).

<i>Hell Followed with Us</i> 2022 novel by Andrew Joseph White

Hell Followed With Us is a 2022 young adult horror novel by transgender author Andrew Joseph White. It was published to commercial and critical success. An animated film based on the book is currently in production, led by co-producer Lilly Wachowski.

References

  1. 1 2 3 B, Rob (January 23, 2017). "Interview with April Daniels (Author of DREADNOUGHT)".
  2. 1 2 3 4 "April Daniels Tackles Trans Teen Trouble in Superheroine Story Dreadnought". B&N Reads. January 24, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Carolyn, Cox (June 21, 2016). "Exclusive Cover Reveal: YA Novel Dreadnought". The Mary Sue .
  4. "Author Q&A: April Daniels". Tethered by Letters. Archived from the original on April 21, 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 Falck, Alex (April 30, 2018). "An Interview with Author April Daniels". Intellectual Freedom Blog.
  6. 1 2 Ceillie, Simkiss (February 24, 2018). "Ownvoices trans YA novel Dreadnought optioned for film". Culturess.
  7. Nicole, Clark (March 14, 2019). "The Female Superhero Stories You Should Be Reading Right Now". VICE.
  8. Leila, Roy. "Dreadnought by April Daniels". Kirkus Reviews.
  9. "30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists and Winners". Lambda Literary. Archived from the original on August 24, 2018.
  10. Michele, Kirichanskaya (October 3, 2017). "'Sovereign' by April Daniels". Lambda Literary.
  11. Kirichanskaya, Michele (October 8, 2020). "Interview With April Daniels". Geeks OUT.