Tananarive Due

Author, Screenwriter, Professor |

TANANARIVE DUE (tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo) is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is an executive producer on Shudder's groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator Steven Barnes wrote "A Small Town" for Season 2 of "The Twilight Zone" on CBS All Access. A leading voice in black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies.

Presentations from Facing Race 2020

Black Histories, Black Fiction, Black Futures: Writing Paths to Freedom

Toni Cade Bambara once wrote: “Words set things in motion. I’ve seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges. I’ve felt them doing it. Words conjure.” Indeed, perhaps nowhere is this most evident today than in the world-building words of Black writers of Speculative Fiction. Amidst the looping history of Black resistance, Rivers Solomon and Tananarive Due have each woven new visions of the past, present and futures. Straddling multiple genres and timelines, these authors who weave stories from the threads of Black history. Through their writings, they voice reckonings, reveal true world horrors and carve new possibilities. Their books are a salve against the wounds of racist lies, and warning signs against the doom of repeating the past.

Due, best known for her horror work on the page and now on the screen, draws from her family’s roots in the struggle for Civil Rights. Solomon plumbs the depths of the ocean, outer space and the human mind to re-examine the ravages that Black people have survived. In a live, moderated conversation with Racial Justice Reads founder, Rosana “RC” Cruz, these brilliant visionaries share their inspirations, influences, histories and hopes and ground justice discourse in the legacy of Black authors who write towards liberation.

Moderator(s): R. Cielo Cruz Speakers: Tananarive Due, Rivers Solomon

Presentations from Facing Race 2018

Afro-futurism and Black Horror

In today’s popular culture, Afrofuturism, Afrosurrealism, and Black Horror are more prominent than ever — from Octavia E. Butler’s novels to Black Panther to Get Out — helping to steer national conversations about race and trauma, including code-switching, microaggressions and black subjugation. Join activist Bree Newsome and author/educator Tananarive Due as they discuss the healing power of horror and science fiction as tools for addressing erasure and creating visionary road maps to black liberation, as well as the role of history in creating black futurity in the arts.

Speakers: Tananarive Due, Bree Newsome

Meet Author: Tananarive Due

Ghost Summer, The Good House and My Soul to Keep (African Immortals Series)

Speakers: Tananarive Due