Maria Dahvana Headley

Thirty-six of the most interesting writers in the Pacific Northwest came together for a week-long marathon of writing live on stage. The result? Hotel Angeline, a truly inventive novel that surprises at every turn of the page. Something is amiss at the Hotel Angeline, a rickety former mortuary perched atop Capitol Hill in rain-soaked Seattle. Fourteen-year-old Alexis Austin is fixing the plumbing, the tea, and all the problems of the world, it seems, in her landlady mother’s absence. The quirky tenants—a hilarious mix of misfits and rabble-rousers from days gone by—rely on Alexis all the more when they discover a plot to sell the Hotel. Can Alexis save their home? Find her real father? Deal with her surrogate dad’s dicey past? Find true love? Perhaps only their feisty pet crow, Habib, truly knows. Provoking interesting questions about the creative process, this novel is by turns funny, scary, witty, suspenseful, beautiful, thrilling, and unexpected.

Named one of the Best Poetry Books of 2021 by The GuardianLonglisted for the 2021 National Translation Award in Poetry. Picked for Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction in Translation of 2020. Named a Book of the Year by NPR, Vox, and The New Statesman. Picked for Loyalty Books' Holiday List. A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of the much-buzzed-about novel The Mere Wife "Brash and belligerent, lunatic and invigorating, with passages of sublime poetry punctuated by obscenities and social-media shorthand." --Ruth Franklin, The New Yorker "The author of the crazy-cool Beowulf-inspired novel The Mere Wife tackles the Old English epic poem with a fierce new feminist translation that radically recontextualizes the tale." --Barbara VanDenburgh, USA Today Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf--and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world--there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist's eye toward gender, genre, and history--Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation of Beowulf, Headley unearthed significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.

A New Statesman Book of the Year A fierce, feminist retelling of the classic tale Beowulf. Gren and his mother, Dana, a war veteran, live on the side of a mountain, next to Herot Hall, a pristine gated community ruled over by Willa and her son, Dylan. Separated by high gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights, Dylan and Gren are unaware of the barriers erected to keep them apart. But when Gren crosses the border into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, he sets up a collision between Dana’s and Willa’s worlds that echoes the Beowulf story — and gives sharp, startling currency to the ancient epic poem.

New York Times bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley presents a modern retelling of the literary classic Beowulf, set in American suburbia as two mothers--a housewife and a battle-hardened veteran--fight to protect those they love in The Mere Wife. From the perspective of those who live in Herot Hall, the suburb is a paradise. Picket fences divide buildings--high and gabled--and the community is entirely self-sustaining. Each house has its own fireplace, each fireplace is fitted with a container of lighter fluid, and outside--in lawns and on playgrounds--wildflowers seed themselves in neat rows. But for those who live surreptitiously along Herot Hall's periphery, the subdivision is a fortress guarded by an intense network of gates, surveillance cameras, and motion-activated lights. For Willa, the wife of Roger Herot (heir of Herot Hall), life moves at a charmingly slow pace. She flits between mommy groups, playdates, cocktail hour, and dinner parties, always with her son, Dylan, in tow. Meanwhile, in a cave in the mountains just beyond the limits of Herot Hall lives Gren, short for Grendel, as well as his mother, Dana, a former soldier who gave birth as if by chance. Dana didn't want Gren, didn't plan Gren, and doesn't know how she got Gren, but when she returned from war, there he was. When Gren, unaware of the borders erected to keep him at bay, ventures into Herot Hall and runs off with Dylan, Dana's and Willa's worlds collide.

#1 New York Times bestseller Maria Dahvana Headley's soaring sky fantasy Magonia is now in paperback! Since she was a baby, Aza Ray Boyle has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak-to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn't think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name. Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who's always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world-and found by another. Magonia. Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power-but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza's hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity-including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

Clarkesworld is a Hugo Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction (new and classic works), articles, interviews and art. Our October 2014 issue contains: Original Fiction by Maria Dahvana Headley ("Taxidermist in the Underworld"), Helena Bell ("Lovecraft"), Rahul Kanakia ("Seeking boarder for rm w/ attached bathroom, must be willing to live with ghosts ($500 / Berkeley)"), and E. Catherine Tobler ("Pithing Needle"). Classic stories by K. J. Parker ("A Rich, Full Week") and Alex Irvine ("Wizard's Six"). Non-fiction by Brian Francis Slattery (I Sing the Lady Electric), an interview with Robert Reed, an Another Word column by Daniel Abraham, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.

As Octavian Caesar (later Augustus) and his legions march into Alexandria, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, summons Sekhmet, the goddess of Death and Destruction, in a desperate attempt to resurrect her husband, who has died by his own hand, and save her kingdom. But this deity demands something in return: Cleopatra's soul.

In this stunningly original debut, go beyond the legend of Queen Cleopatra and discover a passion steeped in the bloodlust of vampires... The year is 30 BC. A messenger delivers word to Queen Cleopatra that her beloved husband, Antony, has died at his own hand. Desperate to save her kingdom, Cleopatra strikes a mortal bargain in exchange for Antony's soul, transforming her into an immortal--a vampire with superhuman strength and an insatiable hunger for blood. Leaving a trail of fiery retribution, Cleopatra journeys from the tombs of Egypt to the ancient underworld in order to meet her husband again. But to resurrect him, Cleopatra will need to challenge mythical beings with power beyond comprehension--risking the fate of both this world and the next for a love that will not die...

The "poignant and hilarious" (Newsday) story of one woman's twelve months of dating anyone -- absolutely anyone -- who asked her out At some point every woman who's single (and not by choice) wonders whether she's not somehow responsible for her predicament. Is she too choosy? Should she have given that guy with the combover and the mother issues a shot? Maybe three full feet isnt too much of a height difference . . .? Maria Dahvana Headley had been there, cherry-picking the men shed dated based on a variety of criteria, and clearly it wasnt getting her anywhere. The Year of Yes is the hilarious and hopeful account of Headley's quest to find a man she could stand (for longer than a couple of hours). Frustrated by her own ineffective taste, she resolved to leave her love life up to fate, dating anyone who asked her: homeless men, a millionaire, several non-English speakers, a mime, and even two women. And finally, one man whose baggage would have disqualified him in any other year . . . but this was the Year of Yes, when Headley would finally discover what was really important.