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Diane Duane

American author

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ445930 ↗
Source-derived summary

Diane Duane (born May 18, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author, long based in Ireland. Her works include the Young Wizards young adult fantasy series and the Rihannsu Star Trek novels.

Biography

Born in New York City, she grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island. After school, she studied nursing and practiced as a psychiatric nurse for two years until 1976, when she moved to California and worked as an assistant to David Gerrold. Her first novel was published by Dell Books in 1979; Gerrold wrote an "overture" to that novel, stating he'd rather be making overtures than introductions to Duane. She subsequently worked as a freelance writer. In 1981, she moved to Pennsylvania.

She married Northern Irish author Peter Morwood in 1987; they later moved to the United Kingdom and then to Ireland, where they resided in Grangecon, County Wicklow.

Bibliography

Young Wizards

So You Want to Be a Wizard. Delacorte.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Diane Duane” is american author. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Diane, Duane and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1952, 1976, 1979, 1981—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1952-05-18. For this dossier, Diane, Duane and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american author” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q445930. VIAF identifies the subject as 27273094. The Library of Congress control number is n83022569. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1976, 1979 and 1981.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Diane Duane”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Diane Duane primary sources, Diane Duane archive and Diane research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Diane Duane”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Diane Duane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.