Dave Wolverton

John David Wolverton (May 28, 1957 – January 14, 2022), better known by his pen names Dave Wolverton and David Farland, was an American author, editor, and instructor of online writing workshops and groups. He wrote in several genres but was known best for his science fiction and fantasy works. He wrote 24 stories for the Star Wars franchise and 3 for the Mummy franchise. Books in his Runelords series were international bestsellers and hit the New York Times bestsellers list.

In 1987, he won the Writers of the Future contest. He was nominated for a Nebula Award in 1990. He died in the early morning of January 14, 2022. He lived in St. George, Utah, with his wife at the time of his death.

Life and career

Wolverton was born May 28, 1957, in Springfield, Oregon to Jack and Lola Jean Wolverton. His family moved to a farm in Monroe when he was six years old, where he grew up and graduated from Monroe High School. Following graduation, he served a volunteer mission in Illinois for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Afterward, he attended Ricks College before transferring to Brigham Young University. He met his wife, Mary, there, and they married in the Provo Utah Temple on June 22, 1985. He and his wife had two daughters and three sons.

He began writing in 1985 during college, publishing the short story "The Sky Is an Open Highway" in the fall 1985 issue of The Leading Edge. Following that, he entered short stories into various contests, eventually winning first place in the 1987 Writers of the Future contest with the novella "On My Way to Paradise". The story was expanded into the novel of the same name, published in 1989 through Bantam Spectra. The novel was nominated for the Locus Award and Philip K. Dick Award.

He became a judge for the Writers of the Future contest in 1991 and was the Coordinating Judge and Editor at the time of his death. After co-editing volume 8 with Algis Budrys in 1992, he took over editing of the annual anthology from volume 9 until volume 14 before passing the role back to Algis Budrys. Wolverton again took over editing the anthology from K. D. Wentworth, beginning with volume 29 and continuing through volume 37.

His historical novel, In the Company of Angels, won the 2009 Whitney Award for best novel of the year, and was a finalist in the best historical novel category. Wolverton also received an outstanding achievement award at the 2009 Whitneys. In 2012, his young adult fantasy thriller Nightingale won the International Book Award for best Young Adult Novel of the Year, the Grand Prize at the Hollywood Book Festival, and the Southern California Book Festival for Best Young Adult Novel. It was also a finalist in the Global Ebook Awards. He has been nominated for other awards, including the Nebula Award in the Best Novelette category for his short story "After a Lean Winter".

In the summer of 1998, Dave Wolverton broke the world record for the largest single author book signing which he achieved with A Very Strange Trip, a book he wrote based on a story by L. Ron Hubbard. He wrote under his own name at the beginning of his career, changing to the pseudonym David Farland in the mid-1990s with the release of the first Runelords book. Wolverton chose the pseudonym in order to have a name more fitting for a Fantasy author and so his physical books would be shelved closer to customers' eye levels in bookstores, rather than on lower shelves as the last name Wolverton had.

Wolverton worked as an English professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University from 1999 to 2002, and held writing workshops for aspiring and established writers. The creative writing class he taught at BYU was taken over by one of his former students, Brandon Sanderson. He taught other writers such as Brandon Mull, Jessica Day George, Eric Flint, Stephenie Meyer, James Dashner, as well as others.

He worked in the gaming industry and greenlit screenplays in Hollywood. In 1998, Wolverton started working part-time at Saffire Studios, helping create video games. He was responsible for the concept of "lurkers" in the well-known RTS (Real-time strategy) game Starcraft: Brood War. In 2002, he began working as a movie producer and also greenlighted movies. He was working on a film adaptation of his Runelords series.

On January 13, 2022, Wolverton suffered from a fall, resulting in a severe head injury and a hemorrhagic stroke. He was on life support until he died early the next morning at the age of 64 in St. George, Utah. He was buried in the Tonaquint Cemetery in St. George, Utah. At the time of his death he was known to be working on three books: A rewrite of 2011's Nightingale, a new Runelords installment titled A Tale of Tales, and a fourth book in his Ravenspell series titled S.W.A.R.M.

Selected awards and honors

Wolverton has been nominated for and won multiple awards for his various works.