Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff
Tanya Huff at Ohio Valley Filk Fest 2005
Tanya Huff at Ohio Valley Filk Fest 2005
Born1957 (age 66–67)
Halifax, Nova Scotia
OccupationNovelist
NationalityCanadian
GenreFantasy, science fiction
SpouseFiona Patton

Tanya Sue Huff (born 1957) is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties.

Biography

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Huff was raised in Kingston, Ontario. Her first sale as a writer was to The Picton Gazette when she was ten.[1][2] They paid $10 for two of her poems. Huff joined the Canadian Naval Reserve in 1975 as a cook, ending her service in 1979. In 1982 she received a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, Ontario; she was in the same class as science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer and they collaborated on their final TV Studio Lab assignment, a short science-fiction show.[citation needed]

In the early 1980s she worked at Mr. Gameway's Ark, a game store in Downtown Toronto. From 1984 to 1992 she worked at Bakka, North America's oldest surviving science fiction book store, in Toronto.[3] During this time she wrote seven novels and nine short stories, many of which were subsequently published. Her first professional sale was to George Scithers, the editor of Amazing Stories in 1985, who bought her short story "Third Time Lucky".[1] She was a member of the Bunch of Seven writing group. In 1992, after living for 13 years in downtown Toronto, she moved with her four large cats to rural Ontario, where she currently resides with her wife, fellow fantasy writer Fiona Patton.[4][5]

Huff is one of the most prominent Canadian authors in the category of contemporary fantasy, a subgenre pioneered by Charles de Lint. Many of the scenes in her stories are near places where she has lived or frequented in Toronto, Kingston, and elsewhere. A prolific author, "she has written everything from horror to romantic fantasy to contemporary fantasy to humour to space opera."[6]

She appeared in a 2009 documentary Pretty Bloody: The Women of Horror.

Bibliography

Main article: Tanya Huff bibliography

Adaptations

The CBC Television series Blood Ties was based on Huff's Vicki Nelson novels, and also aired in the United States on Lifetime. It was produced by CHUM Television and Kaleidoscope Entertainment. It was not picked up for a second season (which would have been the third season in the US).[7]

References

  1. ^ a b Dani Fletcher. "Tanya Huff – Blood and Valor (vol IV/iss 1/January 2001)". Sequential Tart. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  2. ^ Switzer, David M.; Schellenberg, James (19 August 1998). "Wizards, Vampires & a Cat: From the Imagination of Tanya Huff". Challengingdestiny.com. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  3. ^ Hanover, Terri; T. S. Huff (1 January 2005). "Huff, Tanya (Sue) 1957–". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. Gale via Highbeam Research. Archived from the original on 8 January 2016.
  4. ^ Keith, Christie. "Behind the Scenes of Blood Ties" 7 March 2007 afterellen.com Archived 11 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "Archived". Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 19 April 2023.[dead link‍] Denvention 3 "Program Participant Biographies: Tanya Huff"
  6. ^ Gaylaxicon 2006. "Additional Author Guest". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 22 March 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ Tariq (5 February 2011). "Blood Ties – Plans for season 2 and beyond for the cancelled series". SpoilerTV. Retrieved 12 September 2017.