Diana Gabaldon is an American author who merges multiple genres with elements of historical fiction, romance, mystery, adventure, and sci-fi/fantasy. She is best known for the Outlander series of novels. Her books are published in 38 languages and sold in 114 countries.
Diana Jean Gabaldon Watkins grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, and is of Mexican-American and English descent.
She has earned three degrees in science: a bachelor of science in Zoology, a master of science in Marine Biology, and a Ph.D. in Ecology.
Through the late 1980s, she wrote scientific articles and textbooks and worked as a contributing editor on the MacMillan Encyclopedia of Computers. Diana Gabaldon founded the scientific-computation journal Science Software Quarterly, contributed articles to tech magazines such as Iinfoworld, and wrote numerous comic-book scripts for Walt Disney.
"I started using computers for scientific analysis in the early ’80′s, just when microcomputers were getting started. It occurred to me that there should be a venue for other scientists who did what I did (not many, back then) to share their work. The journal took off, and took over–within a year, I was doing virtually nothing else; I ran the journal, did training seminars for scientists wanting to get into computers and lab automation, wrote texts and manuals, and so on," says the author.
Diana worked for a dozen years as a university professor before she began writing her first historical fiction novel, Outlander, in 1989.
The book set the story of Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser and Jamie Fraser and includes elements of time travel and lots of real Scottish and American history. The "historical fiction with a Moebius twist" became the best-selling first novel in the Outlander series of books. It was first published in the USA in 1991.
When her second book was finished, Gabaldon resigned from her faculty position at Arizona State University to become a full-time author.
In 2010, Gabaldon adapted the first third of Outlander into a graphic novel illustrated by Hoang Nguyen.
A television adaptation of the Outlander series premiered on Starz in the US on August 9, 2014, and was distributed by Sony International. Diana has written the scripts for several episodes and made a cameo appearance in the first season.
As of 2022, the Outlander series comprises nine published novels. The books have sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Diana Gabaldon is currently writing and doing background research for Book Ten of the Outlander novels. She has also written many short stories and novellas that are related to her Outlander, and Lord John works.
Diana Gabaldon and her husband, Douglas Watkins, have three adult children and two grandchildren. She currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Photo credit: Nancy Castaldo (dianagabaldon.com)
