Джек Данн: Американский писатель и редактор в Австралии

American writer

Jack Dann (born February 15, 1945) is an American writer best known for his science fiction, as well as an editor and a writing teacher, who has lived in Australia since 1994. He has published over seventy books, the majority being as editor or co editor of story anthologies in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. He has published nine novels, numerous shorter works of fiction, essays, and poetry, and his books have been translated into thirteen languages. His work, which includes fiction in the science fiction, fantasy, horror, magical realism, and historical and alternative history genres, has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, J. G. Ballard, and Philip K. Dick.

Jack Dann was born to a Jewish family in New York State in 1945 and grew up in Johnson City, New York. His father was an attorney and a judge. Dann describes himself as having been "a troublesome child in a very small town", and in his teens associated with a local gang. Following an incident during which gang members let off fireworks, which led to injuries, his parents enrolled him in a military academy, which he chose against the alternative option of a reform school, and where he remained for two years. However, in 1965 he contracted peritonitis after a poorly performed operation for appendicitis. He was considered unlikely to survive by his doctors, and spent four months recovering in hospital, at one stage sharing a ward with members of the Mafia who had been injured in a gun battle. He attributes a major change in outlook to his survival, and began a search for a fulfilling and meaningful vocation, which eventually led to him taking up writing. Following discharge from hospital, he moved to Binghamton, New York where he continued his studies. He was awarded a BA in social and political science in 1968 from Binghamton University and later undertook postgraduate studies in law at St John's Law School from 1969 to 1971. He lived in Binghamton for much of the next 30 years. His long term loyalty to the town which persisted until his move to Australia in 1994 earned him the description of 'the hermit of Binghamton' among his friends. Zebrowski also introduced Dann to the world of science fiction conventions and fandom, a culture he has been involved in ever since. He currently lives on a farm overlooking the sea near Foster, in the Gippsland region of Victoria, but also typically spends some period of each year in Los Angeles and New York. In 2016 he received a Ph. D. from the University of Queensland, School of Communication and Arts. His dissertation was titled "Shadows in the Stone and a Study of Historical Divergence".

He was editor of the SFWA Bulletin from 1970 to 1975. He was assistant editor 1970–1972, and managing editor 1973–1975. He has been a consulting editor for Tor Books since 1994. Of the more than 70 books he has published, most have been themed fiction anthologies in the fantasy, science fiction, and horror genres, of which he has been editor, or co editor. His anthologies tend to be prefaced by his essays on the theme of the anthology and the writers represented therein. His first published anthology was Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1974), collecting stories by Jewish Authors and/or relating to Jewish themes. It was one of the most acclaimed American anthologies of the 1970s, and was later followed by More Wandering Stars: Outstanding Stories of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1981). He has also published, as editor, a further volume of Australian speculative fiction Dreaming Again, anthologies of Nebula Award winning stories, and many other anthologies, both singularly and in collaboration with others.

Many of his anthologies have been editorial collaborations with Gardner Dozois. Of these, the most extensive series has been the "Magic Tales" anthologies, initially published by Ace Books and commencing with Unicorns! in 1982. Across over 30 volumes, this series collected and republished short stories centering on a number of fantasy and science fiction themes, such as aliens, mermaids, dinosaurs, dragons, and clones. The selected stories tend to be reprints of previously published works, and some are decades old. Each book has a preface by the editors, and each story is preceded by a short introduction, focusing on other works by the story's author.

Short stories, novelettes and novellas have comprised the vast majority of his fiction and over 100 of these, in multiple genres, have been published across his writing career. His short stories have appeared in Omni and Playboy and other major magazines and anthologies and have been collected in Timetipping (1980), the retrospective short story collection Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann (2001), including an introduction and notes by Dann and Visitations (2003). Major shorter works include: 'Junction', a novella, later expanded into a novel, published in Fantastic Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories 23 in November 1973; 'The Dybbuk Dolls', published in New Dimensions of Science Fiction Number 5 in 1975, a fantastic tale portraying Jews in a dystopian future United States; 'Camps', published in Fantasy and Science Fiction in May 1979, a story of a terminally ill young man who experiences another man's past in a concentration camp, part based on Dann's own brush with death in his youth; 'Down among the Dead Men', published in Oui on 11 July 1982 and co written by Gardner Dozois, also focusing on a concentration camp the story was awarded the Premios Gilgames de Narrativa Fantastica award; 'Bad Medicine', published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in October 1986, an except from his novel Counting Coup, substantially revised. Sections of Starhiker were serialized as two novellas in Amazing from June–September 1976, prior to the publication of the full novel version. It was translated into German, and published as Welten Vagabund in 1979.

The novel begins in a small town in the 19th century fashioned Midwestern United States, which is separated from reality: apparently it is the only human settlement left on Earth, now situated close to Hell. Protagonist Ned Wheeler leaves the town, undertaking a journey into hell and emerging in a 20th century New York where many have dreamt of him prior to his arrival. Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick was greatly impressed with the novel, commenting: "Junction is where Ursula Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven and Tony Boucher's "The Quest for Saint Aquin" meet and yet it is an entirely new novel I may very well be basing some of my future work on Junction." A novella version of Junction was published in Fantastic in November 1973. The novel attracted significant praise within the science fiction genre and was appreciated by both followers of humanistic and cyberpunk traditions in that field. It was compared to Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal by the Washington Post, and it was described as among the greatest science fiction novels by Science Fiction Age.

Set in a 22nd century Earth overshadowed by mega corporations, the novel follows John Stranger, a Native American who is forced from his reservation home by the Trans United company to work in orbital space construction. Stranger's shamanistic skills become prized by his employer to assist in a race against rival companies to decode an alien transmission containing blueprints for a faster than light space drive. The novel was an expanded version of the novelette Echoes of Thunder, which was published in a Tor Double Novel volume with Harlan Ellison's Run for the Stars in 1991. It was first published by Bantam Books in December 1995 and has been published in ten languages to date. It won the Australian Aurealis Award in 1997, was #1 on The Age bestseller list, and in 1996, a novella based on the novel, "Da Vinci Rising," was awarded the Nebula Award for Best Novella. The Memory Cathedral was also shortlisted for the Audio Book of the Year, which was part of the 1998 Braille & Talking Book Library Awards. A novelette version, a revised excerpt from the novel, was published by in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine 8 in October 1984, and was shortlisted for Locus Award for Best Novelette, Nebula Award for Best Novelette and World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story in 1985. A companion volume, Promised Land, appeared from PS Publishing in 2007 and further explores, through short stories and novellas, both elements of the actual and alternative 1950s setting as presented in the novel.

Michael Swanwick provided an introduction to this short horror novel about a retired Nazi hunter, whose siblings were murdered by Nazi prison doctor, Josef Mengele. He is propelled into an arduous and confronting journey into the Amazon jungle, in search of a rumored miracle working physician. This is instigated by the discovery of the purported remains of the infamous doctor, and the apparent need to purge the effects of a spiritual ailment, which strikes him at Mengele's graveside, and may be the source of diseases with which he has become afflicted. It was nominated for a 2008 Aurealis Award in the category of Best Horror Novel.

He has published poetry in collections, magazines, in the form of poetry postcards and a chapbook Christs and Other Poems (1978). The greater number of publications have been in The Anthology of Speculative Poetry and Rod Serling Presents The Twilight Zone Magazine. Dann and Webb's 1997 story, "Niagara Falling," won both the Aurealis Award and Ditmar Award for short fiction in 1998.

He is known for his meticulous and extensive research of his subjects and their relevant setting, which has been a salient feature of his alternative history novels such as The Memory Cathedral, The Rebel: an Imagined Life of James Dean and The Silent. In the case of The Rebel, novel, he read over 100 books relating to the 1950s setting. In keeping with the approach traditionally taken by scholars of history, he has expressed a preference for consulting primary sources, wherever possible. He studied in Method acting in the 1960s, a technique which involves total immersion into a character's life, experiences, habits and outlook, and parallels this propensity for in depth research. He has made links between this training and his approach to developing his fictional characters. In the case of his novel Bad Medicine, which includes a character who is a Native American medicine man, he spent a year with the Sioux People, and participated in traditional ceremonies. He advocates the development of writing technique through rigorous writing workshops, where emerging writers are guided by established writers, which he feels is a fast track to gaining a professional writing style. He attributes the emergence of a number of talented writers in the science fiction field to this process and also suggests that his own writing has been shaped by his participation these types of events, including the Milford Writer's Workshop.

As part of its Bibliographies of Modern Authors Series, The Borgo Press has published an annotated bibliography & guide entitled The Work of Jack Dann. An updated second edition is in progress. Dann is also listed in Contemporary Authors and the Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series; The International Authors and Writers Who's Who; Personalities of America; Men of Achievement; Who's Who in Writers, Editors, and Poets, United States and Canada; Dictionary of International Biography; the Directory of Distinguished Americans; Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century; and Who's Who in the World.

The Man Who Melted Jack Dann is a word game inspired by Jack Dann's book The Man Who Melted (1984). The aim is to place the writer's name in front or behind the title of one of the writer's books and see if it leads to a funny sentence.