Marjorie Liu

Marjorie Liu
Liu at the 2012 New York Comic Con
Born	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Novelist, poet, comic book writer
Language	English, Chinese
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Lawrence University University of Wisconsin
Period	2007 to the present
Genre	Adventure, urban fantasy, romance, superhero fantasy
Notable works	Tiger Eye NYX X-23 Dark Wolverine
Website
marjoriemliu.com

Marjorie M. Liu is an American New York Times best-selling author and comic novelist. Her paranormal romance and urban fantasy novels^[1] include most notable The Hunter Kiss and Tiger Eye series. Her work for Marvel Comics include NYX, X-23, Dark Wolverine, and Astonishing X-Men. She also writes Monstress for Image Comics for which she was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best New Series.

Early life

Marjorie M. Liu was born in Philadelphia, and grew up in Seattle, Washington.^[2] Her father hails from Taiwan, while her mother is an American of French, Scottish and Irish descent.^[3] She developed an early love of reading, from books such as Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books, and the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Campbell, Charles de Lint and Jorge Luis Borges.^[4]

Liu majored in East Asian Languages and Cultures and minored in Biomedical Ethics at the Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin.^[2][4] During her undergraduate years there, she also practiced her web design skills by designing a fan site called The Wolverine and Jubilee page, based on her discovery of numerous X-Men fan sites that she found to be well-designed. Although she had never read comic books in her youth, she was familiar with the X-Men through the animated TV series and fan fiction, and to familiarize herself with them more closely, she purchased X-Men and Wolverine comics for reference from Powerhouse Comics in Appleton, Wisconsin. In the process, she became a fan of the franchise herself, and wrote her own X-Men fan fiction, finding it an experimental exercise that improved her storytelling skills.^[4][5][6]

After graduating, she attended law school at the University of Wisconsin, as she was impressed with their East Asian legal center, and the presence of top U.S. experts in Biotech Law on the University's faculty. She found an internship in Beijing working at the Foreign Agriculture Service at the U.S. Embassy, which at the time, was dealing with the Chinese government's new rules regarding the import of genetically modified food. She graduated in May 2003, and was soon admitted to the bar.^[2][4]

Career

Liu at a June 29, 2011 book signing at Midtown Comics Times Square in Manhattan.

Despite enjoying law school, Liu was disillusioned with the life of a lawyer by the time she graduated, and decided to become a writer.^[2] After she published poetry, short stories, and non-fiction pieces, she submitted her first novel, a paranormal romantic adventure set in China and the United States called Tiger Eye, which she wrote in a month, to several publishers before it was acquired by Dorchester.^[4] It was published in November 2007.^[7] She eventually wrote a sequel to Tiger Eye, as well as A Taste of Crimson, the sequel to Liz Maverick's Crimson City, which was published in August 2005.^[8]

Seeing a little boy dressed as Spider-Man at a book convention in Tucson, Arizona, Liu remarked to her former literary agent, Lucienne Diver, how she would enjoy writing for Marvel Comics. Diver, who knew an editor who was acquiring authors to write Marvel tie-in novels for Pocket Books, made some inquiries, and found that while the publisher had already employed enough writers to write Spider-Man books amid the release of the 2002 film, they had not hired anyone to write tie-in novels for the X-Men.^[2][6]

After writing the X-Men novel Dark Mirror in 2005, Liu began talking with Marvel editors about doing comics work for them. It was three years later that she got her first assignment, the X-Men spin-off NYX.^[6][9][10] She served as co-writer on Marvel's Daken: Dark Wolverine with Daniel Way, and wrote the X-23 series, which ended with #21.

Liu is currently living in Boston where she continues to write and make panel appearances. She also teaches a course at MIT on comic book writing and participates at the VONA/VOICES Workshop as guest lecturer at UC Berkeley for popular fiction.^[11][12]

Selected writings

Liu wrote the final 21 issues for Marvel's Astonishing X-Men series with artist Mike Perkins from 2012 to 2013. The series received media attention for featuring Marvel Comics' first gay wedding between Northstar and longterm partner Kyle in issue #51.^[13] According to Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, the issue comes as a response to real world's legalization of same sex marriage in New York.^[14] Liu was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award in 2013.^[15]

Her latest comic series, Monstress, has also gained wide publicity as it explores racism, the effects of war, and feminism.^[16]

Personal life

She has been dating author Junot Diaz since 2011.^[17]

Her favorite TV shows include Stargate, Castle, Lost Girl, and The Amazing Race.

Bibliography

Novels

• Dirk & Steele series
  • Book 1 - Tiger Eye (2005)
  • Book 2 - Shadow Touch (2006)
  • Book 3 - The Red Heart of Jade (2006)
  • Book 4 - A Dream of Stone and Shadows (2006) - in Dark Dreamers anthology, NYT Best Seller ^[1]
  • Book 5 - Eye of Heaven (2006)
  • Book 6 - Soul Song (2007)
  • Book 7 - The Last Twilight (2008)
  • Book 8 - The Wild Road (2008)
  • Book 9 - The Fire King (2009)
  • Book 10 - In the Dark of Dreams (2010)
  • Book 11 - Within the Flames (2011)
• Hunter Kiss series
  • The Iron Hunt (2008)
  • Darkness Calls (2009)
  • Hunter Kiss(1/2009) - Companion Novella to The Iron Hunt and Darkness Calls in Wild Thing anthology
  • Armor of Roses (1/2010) - Hunter Kiss Novella in Inked anthology
  • A Wild Light (7/2010)
  • The Mortal Bone (2011)
  • Labyrinth of Stars (2014)
• Other novels
  • A Taste of Crimson: Crimson City, Book 2 (2005)
  • X-Men: Dark Mirror (2005)
• Novellas
  • Six (anthology: Holidays are Hell)
  • Minotaur in Stone (anthology: Hotter than Hell)
  • The Robber Bride (anthology: Huntress)
  • After the Blood (anthology: Songs of Love and Death)
  • Sympathy for the Bones (anthology: An Apple for the Creature)
  • The Last Dignity of Man (anthology: The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination)
  • The Tangleroot Palace (anthology: Never After)
  • Call Her Savage (anthology: Masked)

Comics

• NYX: No Way Home #1 - 6 (Marvel Comics, 2008–2009)
• Dark Wolverine #75 - 90 (co-written with Daniel Way, Marvel Comics, 2009–2010)
• X-23 Vol. 2 #1- Women of Marvel one-shot (Marvel Comics, 2010)
• Black Widow Vol. 4 #1 - 5 (Marvel Comics, 2010)
• Girl Comics #3 (Wolverine & Jubilee story only, Marvel Comics, 2010)
• Wolverine: Road to Hell - one-shot (Marvel Comics, 2010)
• Daken:Dark Wolverine #1 - 9 (co-written with Daniel Way, Marvel Comics, 2010–2011) (continuation of Dark Wolverine)
• X-23 Vol. 3 #1 - 21 (Marvel Comics, 2010–2012)
• Jim Henson's Storyteller ("Puss in Boots", Archaia, 2013)
• Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #48 - #68, (Marvel Comics, 2012–2013)
• X-Termination #1 (Marvel Comics, 2013)
• X-Treme X-Men Vol. 2 #13 (Marvel Comics, 2013)
• Legends of Red Sonja #4 (Dynamite, 2014)
• Monstress (Image Comics, 2015)

Short stories

• "Where the Heart Lives" in My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon (2007)
• "After the Blood" in Songs of Love and Death (2010)
• "The Last Dignity of Man" in The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination (2013)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marjorie Liu.

• Official website
• Marjorie Liu on Twitter
  
• Marjorie Liu on Facebook
• Marjorie M. Liu at the Comic Book DB
• Off The Shelf Podcast Interview
• CNN Interview: Passion to Portfolio