Maria Dahvana Headley is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books including The Mere Wife (MCD x FSG), a contemporary adaptation of Beowulf, named by the Washington Post as one of its Notable Works of Fiction in 2018. Her new verse translation of Beowulf is forthcoming from FSG in August, 2020. Shes written for both teenagers (Magonia and Aerie, HarperCollins) and adults, in a variety of genres and forms. Headleys short fiction has been shortlisted for the Nebula, Shirley Jackson, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Awards, and for the 2020 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been anthologized in many years bests. This book contains the body of her short fiction to date.
Her essays on gender, chronic illness, politics, propaganda, and mythology have been published and covered in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Harvards Nieman Storyboard, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by The MacDowell Colony, Arte Studio Ginestrelle, and the Sundance Institutes Theatre Lab, among other organizations. She's taught writing in the master's programs at Sarah Lawrence, and delivered masterclasses and writing lectures at Dartmouth, Northwestern, Wesleyan Nebraska, and Newman University, among others.
She grew up in the high desert of Idaho on a survivalist sled dog ranch, where she spent summers plucking the winter coat from her fathers wolf.