Dave Wolverton place of birth Springfield
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 multiple awards, including the Philip K. Dick Award for "Best Novel in the English Language".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 worked as an English professor of creative writing at Brigham Young University from 1999–2002, 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 2012's Nightingale, Runelords: Tale of Tales, and a fourth book in his Ravenspell series titled S.W.A.R.M.
birthplace place of origin native place homeland birth city